“The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes.”

“One can only call that youth healthful which refuses to be reconciled to old ways and which, foolishly or shrewdly, combats the old. This is nature’s charge and all progress hinges upon it.”

“Sometimes your whole life could hinge on a fraction of an inch. Or the beat of a nanosecond. Or the knock on a door.”

“You like potato and I like po-tah-to,
You like tomato and I like to-mah-to;
Potato, po-tah-to, tomato, to-mah-to –
Let's call the whole thing off!”

“What goes wrong [in long-range planning] is that sensible anticipation gets converted into foolish numbers: and their validity always hinges on large loose assumptions.”

“Curiosity is the one thing invincible in Nature.”

“There are moments that define a person's whole life. MOMENTS in which everything they are and everything they may possibly become hinge on a single decision.”

“Hundreds of years ago, natural theologians tried to impress their readers with stories of the wondrous symmetries of Nature; now we see that, ironically, it is the departures from those symmetries that makes life possible. It is upon the flaws of Nature, not the laws of Nature, that the possibility of our existence hinges. …The laws and constants of Nature are features that enforce uniformity and simplicity, while initial conditions and symmetry breakings permit complexity and diversity.”

“I want to see what is there in the heart! Natural curiosity!”

“Weird behavior is natural in smart children, like curiosity is to a kitten.”