The search for extra-terrestrial life is a failure until that moment when it suddenly becomes a success.

If you took all the sand from all the beaches, all the desserts, and all the oceans and called that the Universe, our whole solar system would be less than one grain of sand.

If this is the only planet on which not only life, but intelligent life, has arisen, that would be very unusual.

Our brains are wired to interpret shapes as faces and bodies. That's why people see the Virgin Mary in the clouds or even in cheese sandwiches. It's your cytoplasm, not some strange ectoplasm.

Despite the impression you may have from watching too much TV, movies are not about reproducing reality. Theyre about telling stories.

No heating system can deliver perfectly uniform temperatures throughout a house, and drafts can magnify the perceived difference in temperatures. Try walking around with a thermometer.

If you still believe that aliens would travel hundreds of light years to carve temporary graffiti in our wheat, then your imagination is one of the seven wonders of the world, and should be bronzed.

It bears mentioning that the Milky Way is only one of 150 billion galaxies visible to our telescopes - and each of these will have its own complement of planets.

Everything you see is filtered through your visual system (imperfect) and your brain (also imperfect, despite what your mom told you). Witness testimony is the worst kind of evidence in science.

Typically, only about 2 percent of the American populace tunes in to PBS's 'Nova' series - the most successful science show on the tube. 'Survivor' and 'X Factor' get twice the ratings.

A practical way to travel between the stars is a must-have for space opera, and a sine qua non for our frequently vaunted future as a galactic society.

The Buddha promised release from something we all understand: suffering. By contrast, no one can say what was the original sin, and no one understands how the suffering of Christ can redeem it.

They weren't nice words he said. He could've lived a good life and died never having made a person feel rubbed down to bones and too sad to hold together.

And you… do you know what you are?”“Stupid?”“Beautiful, ” he says, his face turning red.

If he had gone to the old school, he was by no means old-school.

Next in importance to having a good aim is to recognize when to pull the trigger.

You can have my credit card, baby, but keep your red hot fingers off of my heart, lady.

The echo of the gunshots lingered; it was soon drowned by the chanting of the mob, and I didn't believe what I was hearing. They were chanting, 'We want peace. We want peace.'

I'm very deliberate and I love Excel spreadsheets and I love five-year plans and all that. So it felt really fun to play someone so incredibly different from myself.

Looking back on the production of 'Nevermind,' I'm embarrassed by it now.' It's closer to a Motley Crue record than it is a punk rock record.

Nothing adventured, nothing attained