“I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, that’s completely inconsistent with the world we observe, that’s fine. But don’t make your kids do it. Because we need them.”

Always remember, believe in today, believe in tomorrow, believe in yourself, and whatever happens, don’t jump.

We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need engineers that can build stuff and solve problems.

The Earth is not 6,000 or 10,000 years old. It’s not. And if that conflicts with your beliefs, I strongly feel you should question your beliefs.

Also, we have a strange situation where we have malnourished fat people. It’s not that we need more food. It’s that we need to manage our food system better.

Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. The key to our being here now is time, 4.54 billion (Earth) years of time.

I meet so many people who are intimidated by arithmetic.

I hope climate science becomes the big thing. And then what I want is electrical engineers to solve the world’s energy problems, energy distribution problems.

If you decide to become a dancer on Broadway, never say who your favorite dance partner is, because members of the media will presume you never want to dance with anybody else.

In another couple centuries I’m sure that worldview won’t even exist. There’s no evidence for it.

But investment in space stimulates society, it stimulates it economically, it stimulates it intellectually, and it gives us all passion.

From an evolutionary standpoint you can’t just wipe everything out and start over, and I don’t think you can do it in the school system either.

The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it.

The Big Bang banged, and for some reason we’re here. And that’s astonishing. And that we can understand that, that’s the most astonishing.

When we sit down to draw or paint the sun’s rays, we generally use yellow because in the morning and the evening with the blue light scattered away so strongly you’re left with a little bit of red and it comes out yellowish.

Teaching creationism in science class as an alternative to evolution is inappropriate.

I say to the grown-ups, ‘If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we’ve observed in the universe that’s fine. But don’t make your kids do it.’

When I was a little kid, I was the first kid in my neighborhood to have a pet alligator.

I use Pinterest for everything. Book collections, trips, hobbies. It’s all there. I planned my wedding on it. When I had a kid, I planned all his stuff on it. So it was nice to discover that I wasn’t the only one.

The real number of the US’ obligations, unfunded obligations that we’re passing on to our future generates is more like $70 trillion to $75 trillion.

When you’re a kid, ‘Star Trek’ is a slower burn. It’s funny, it’s entertaining, but it also has a maturity about it – which is its universal appeal, I think.

As a kid I had dreams about being successful, thinking it would be cool. Then, when I was in my 20s, I really thought I had it much more figured out than I do now.

When I was a kid, we sat around the house. If I got bored, I’d have to figure out something to do.

In New York, I was excited about the music in New York because the only music that I was more or less involved with in the South was either country and western or hillbilly music as we used to call it when I was a kid and, ah, gospel.

When are you ever settled enough to have kids?