The interaction of the variation in our genes is what's responsible for lots of our attributes and vigor.

Biology will relate every human gene to the genes of other animals and bacteria, to this great chain of being.

Scientists tend to be skeptical, but the weakness of the community of science is that it tends to move into preformed establishment modes that say this is the only way of doing science, the only valid view.

By asking a novel question that you don't know the answer to, you discover whether you can formulate a way of finding the answer, and you stretch your own mind, and very often you learn something new.

Why do we do basic research? To learn about ourselves.

I have the same sense of the power and virtue of knowledge that some people get from a religious background.

Science doesn't in the slightest depend on trust. It depends completely on the belief that you can demonstrate something for yourself.

We are embedded in a biological world and related to the organisms around us.

In 15 years we'll have all the sequence, a list of the genes everyone has in common and those that differ among people. We know only something like a tenth of 1 percent of the sequence at the moment.

We know specific genes are turned on in specific cells, but we don't know to what extent this happens.

The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought.

Early on, it's good to develop the ability to write. Learning to write is a useful exercise, even if what you're writing about is not that relevant.

We haven't been able yet to determine in terms of genes what makes a human being a human and not another mammal.

The best project is one that asks a novel question.

The interaction of the variation in our genes is what's responsible for lots of our attributes and vigor.

The human's place in the universe will be set in the scheme of evolution, the product of our biological inheritance.

Everyone wants a hand in the outcome, a piece of the knowledge.

Today we try to identify a gene and then study its properties.

It's easier to change what you do than people think it is. If you don't change, your field changes around you.

Biology will relate every human gene to the genes of other animals and bacteria to this great chain of being.

Biology will tell you a lot of things but there are many that it can not explain and you need to look at physics instead.

The humans place in the universe will be set in the scheme of evolution the product of our biological inheritance.

The only journey is the journey within.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

Maybe there's a sort of veneer of optimism about U.S. comedy, whereas perhaps in England, we don't mind ending it on a sourer note.

We decided we didn't want to do a musical for TV because the idea of writing a musical that would be seen on television once seems insane.

Chocolate makes everyone smile even bankers.

Of course I loved 'I Love Lucy' and saw every episode over and over again. I found it heartbreaking that Ricky got to be famous and have an exciting life at the Tropicana while Lucy was stuck in that terrible apartment with the Mertzes.

I don't know too many parents that want to feed their kids soda, but high-fructose corn syrup is cheap. The price of soda in 20 years has gone down 40 percent while the price of whole foods, fruits and vegetables, has gone up 40 percent and obesity goes up right along that curve.

I think the universe is pure geometry - basically, a beautiful shape twisting around and dancing over space-time.

When Im driving the highway by myself is when I write best.

The trouble with reason is that it becomes meaningless at the exact point where it refuses to act.

The great monuments are raised up like dams, pitting the logic of majesty and authority against all the shady elements: it is in the form of cathedrals and palaces that Church and State speak and impose silence on the multitudes.

Arizona is really cool but I couldn't stay there for too long.

Easter tells us of something children can't understand, because it addresses things they don't yet have to know: the weariness of life, the pain, the profound loneliness and hovering fear of meaninglessness.

Spina bifida affects every single aspect of your life, from your child's self-esteem to your ability to sleep at night.

The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.

I find myself really privileged to be able to go in and look at a set that the likes of Hollywood can provide, and say, 'My God, look at the craftsmanship in this; look at the ambition in it, the scale of it.'

For all their expertise at figuring out how things work, technical people are often painfully aware how much of human behavior is a mystery. People do things for unfathomable reasons. They are opaque even to themselves.

I can assuredly say that it's my life's mission to love all people.

The classroom should be an entrance into the world not an escape from it.

Fame and stardom sat very easily on Elizabeth Taylor's shoulders.

The Beatles and Ray Charles were in the same charts together, and that was just called pop music - it wasn't called soul or rock. The best pop music just stands out as something that's just original, and I think it should all be called pop again.

You were made by God and for God and until you understand that life will never make sense.

I don't think you cross the line - I think you move the line.

I think we're struggling with trying to redefine various positions at this point in history. To allow freedom for women, freedom for men, freedom from those sharply defined gender roles.