"We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster."
"Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?"
"One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time."
"We can't help it. Life looks for life."
"You could just as well say that an agnostic is a deeply religious person with at least a rudimentary knowledge of human fallibility."
"The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself."