"Why is there space rather than no space? Why is space three-dimensional? Why..."
"Why is there space rather than no space? Why is space three-dimensional? Why is space big? We have a lot of room to move around in. How come it's not tiny? We have no consensus about these things. We're still exploring them."
"Donald Trump called for the closing of borders to Muslims; John McCain said, in response to the President's address on the San Bernardino shooting, that 'this is the war of our time.' As that shooting shows, we react to terrorism with far more intensity than we do to an ordinary crime."
"It was at this moment that I wrote my first important paper in theoretical physics. I was 32 years old, 5 years beyond the alleged age of senility for theorists."
"Theorists can be wrong; only nature is always right."
"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination."
"As a physicist, I've always found cosmology to be a rational elixir; it distances me from ordinary concerns."
"After I had written a paper or letter for Bohr, I always had the impression that I had learned something which I could use for my own work. And somehow, I never felt that I had too little time for my own work. I always found time."
"I don't have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I'm happier now than before I developed the condition."
"Einstein had two new predictions from general relativity. One was that light would bend. That was tested in 1919, and basically, he was proven right. The second prediction was gravitational waves, which took us 100 years to prove. The theory itself, which is thought by most to be rather obscure, you use every day, probably."
"I wish to thank the Nobel Foundation for granting me the greatest honor to which a scientist may aspire."
"So the old Copenhagen interpretation needs to be generalized, needs to be replaced by something that can be used for the whole universe, and can be used also in cases where there is plenty of individuality and history."
"Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change."
"People say, 'I failed out of college! My life is over!' Well, it's not over. It depends on what you do with it."
"As with any large investment, it can be emotionally difficult to abandon a line of research when it isn't working out. But in science, if something isn't working, you have to toss it out and try something else."
"The fact that the colors in the flower have evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; that means insects can see the colors. That adds a question: does this aesthetic sense we have also exist in lower forms of life?"
"It's better to get mugged than to live a life of fear."
"The important thing is that we now have the tools to sequence all kinds of animals and plants and microbes - as well as humans. It is not important that we didn't actually finish the human sequence yet."
"Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced."
"I did not come from an academic background. My father was a smart man, but he had a fifth-grade education. He and all his friends were plumbers. They were all born around 1905 in great poverty in New York City and had to go to work when they were 12 or 13 years old."
"Scientists cloister themselves away from the rest of society, happy just to receive their next grant. They lose their connection to a purpose."
"When I was in school, I liked math because all the problems had answers. Everything else seemed very subjective."
"Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?"
"Social connection is such a basic feature of human experience that when we are deprived of it, we suffer."
"My PhD was not fast out of the gate."
"Evolution is among the most well-established theories in the scientific community. To doubt it sounds to biologists as absurd as denying relativity does to physicists."
