Consider the Lichen. Lichens are just about the hardiest vis... - Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

"It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you."

"There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person."

"When the poet Paul Valery once asked Albert Einstein if he kept a notebook to record his ideas, Einstein looked at him with mild but genuine surprise. "Oh, that's not necessary,"he replied . "It's so seldom I have one."

"Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen."

"In France, a chemist named Pilatre de Rozier tested the flammability of hydrogen by gulping a mouthful and blowing across an open flame, proving at a stroke that hydrogen is indeed explosively combustible and that eyebrows are not necessarily a permanent feature of one's face."