“Educated women have fewer kids. And the kids they do have are better cared for and are more successful. As I like to say, it’s not one thing that we need to focus on. It’s everything all at once.”

Tax dollars intended for science education must not be used to teach creationism as any sort of real explanation of nature, because any observation or process of inference about our origin and the nature of the universe disproves creationism in every respect.

My father was a very good Boy Scout. He was very skilled with knots, and he showed me how to tie a bow tie.

If you just take a single human and put him or her in the forest he or she might not do very well without some sort of education which he got or she got from some tribe.

When we see the shadow on our images, are we seeing the time 11 minutes ago on Mars? Or are we seeing the time on Mars as observed from Earth now? It’s like time travel problems in science fiction. When is now; when was then?

Winter lingered so long in the lap of Spring that it occasioned a great deal of talk.

Our goal in science is to discover universal laws of nature. That pursuit fills me with wonder.

The strange thing about grinding that might surprise many people is that you can grind things and shape them using materials that are generally somewhat softer than the thing you’re grinding and shaping.

The most serious problem facing humankind is climate change. All of these people breathing and burning our atmosphere has led to an extraordinarily dangerous situation.

It fills me with joy to know that we can pursue these answers. It is an astonishing thing that we are — you and I are one of the ways the universe knows itself.

Unlike science, creationism cannot predict anything, and it cannot provide satisfactory answers about the past.

People get a lot out of being religious. They have strong senses of community and mutual support. So, what’s not to love [there]?

Think how fortunate we are to know this much. But think also of all that’s yet to be discovered. Here’s hoping the deep answers to the deep questions-from the nature of consciousness to the origin of life-will be found in not too much more time.

Apparently there is redundancy in memory: You store the same memory in different parts of your brain for accessing at different speeds. That speed would depend on the frequency of use and the importance of the knowledge.

There’s nothing I believe in more strongly than getting young people interested in science and engineering, for a better tomorrow, for all humankind.

Religion is a completely different thing from the claim that the Earth is six thousand years old. That’s just crazy.

Speaking of human computers, there is a guy named Art Benjamin, he’s a human calculator. He says it’s a skill he learned as a kid. Now he’s a math professor at Harvey Mudd. He can find the square root of a six digit number in a few seconds. Practice.

I think 14 was when I knew I wanted to do it and promote my own comedy shows at the church. Then, everyone would come.

I think if everyone agrees that that’s the goal then it doesn’t matter who’s the band and it doesn’t matter who’s the producer. It just means that that you try to realise the ambition no matter what the situation is or who the people are.

But some nights, I must tell you, I go down there after everyone has fallen asleep. I swim back and forth in the echoing blackness. I sing a love song as well as I can, lost for a while in the home of the rain.

Unlike the rest of everyone I hang around with, I don’t drink, so I remember what happened after shows. And I have never hit on anyone after a show, I’m not that kind of person. Even if I was attracted to someone, I’d be too shy.

Everyone just wants to hear the exact jokes that apply to them and want to – everyone wants a perfectly crafted joke for them.

Everyone knows that! Hobbes: I’m looking it up. Calvin: You do, and I’ll look up that 12-letter word you played with all the Xs and Js! Hobbes: What’s your score for ZQFMGB? Calvin: 957.

I love ‘Goodfellas’ because it’s a great movie – it’s funny and there is action at perfect points. I just think Martin Scorsese makes everyone look really cool.

Everyone’s got one but some are blacker and wider than others. It’s a feeling of being abandoned,cut adrift in space and time-sometimes following the loss of a loved one.