I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to. |
I don't plan to write another science book, but I don't plan not to. I do enjoy writing histories, and taking subjects that are generally dull and trying to make them interesting. |
I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted -- stay up all night or eat ice-cream straight out of the container. |
I have long known that it is part of God's plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth. |
I like it [Australia] a lot, I think it's a terrific country; they really know how to live. The natural history of the place is endlessly fascinating. |
If you can imagine a man having a vasectomy without anesthetic to the sound of frantic sitar-playing, you will have some idea what popular Turkish music is like. |
In three minutes, 98 percent of all the matter there is or will ever be has been produced. We have a universe. It is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich. |
Incidentally, disturbance from cosmic background radiation is something we have all experienced. Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive, and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe. |
More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to. |
Most scientists are without exception adorably quirky, and one of the ways of making it more accessible was to try to get readers interested in the person. |
My first rule of consumerism is never to buy anything you can't make your children carry. |
My first rule of travel is never to go to a place that sounds like a medical condition and Critz is clearly an incurable disease involving flaking skin. |
Nothing gives the English more pleasure, in a quiet but determined sort of way, than to do things oddly. |
The average Southerner has the speech patterns of someone slipping in and out of consciousness. I can change my shoes and socks faster than most people in Mississippi can speak a sentence. |
The biggest attraction in Britain is Britain - the whole package. Our heritage is not just a collection of ornaments scattered across the country, it is Britain itself and makes us gloriously distinguishable from any other country. |