Strange as it may seem, wrote Richard Feynman, we understand the distribution of matter in the interior of the Sun far better than we understand the interior of the Earth.

I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.

There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age.

If you can imagine a man having a vasectomy without anesthetic to the sound of frantic sitar-playing, you will have some idea of what popular Turkish music is like.

That's the trouble with losing your mind; by the time it's gone, it's too late to get it back.

Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old.

Geologists are never at a loss for paperweights.

Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding.

Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness.

Protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.

Why is it, I wondered, that old people are always so self-centered and excitable? But I just smiled benignly and stood back, comforted by the thought that soon they would be dead.

Those of us who are blamed when old for reading childish books were blamed when children for reading books too old for us.

History will remember him as a savage, but that's because we write the histories.

Try not to waste your entire life working just to earn a paycheck. Seek to discover what your true passion in life is, and start working on turning it into an empire of your own.

Patience can be a means of letting matters mature to a proper state for action, not just a way of letting time slip away.

Disparagement of television is second only to watching television as an American pastime.

Religion would save a man; Christ would make him worth saving.

The sad fact is that international politics has always been a ruthless and dangerous business, and it is likely to remain that way.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who will watch the watchers?

Why onions? Because they're cheap, last a long time, can be lit any number of ways and force me to think about what happens when the form turns away from the light.

I am kinder to my body. I don't try to prove anything to myself or others. I keep thinking about the need to go slower, gentler and maintain a sense of humor about it all.