“If I could remember the names of all these particles, I'd be a botanist.”

“Think how hard physics would be if particles could think.”

“Just remember all caps when you spell the man name”

“All my life, my heart has sought a thing I cannot name.

Remembered line from a long-
forgotten poem”

“You know, I'd get a tattoo with your name on it. Only, I want you to have the freedom to change your name if you want to.”

“Talking about the particles, I know I don't have any special theory of particles. It's just the way it came out and that's the way I want to do it. Also, there are advantages to particles: you can't break them; they don't break apart. They don’t have any rigid connections; there are no rigid connections to break. The particles are always shifting around a little bit and you have to kick them back into shape. It's like tuning a piano every once in a while. I like the idea of something being permanent by being non-rigid, being absolutely non-rigid but not having a rigid form that can be broken. But a theory of particles, I don’t know. Maybe late one night after a few drinks I explained to Lucy Lippard a theory of particles. I'm sure I didn't remember the next day.”

“The conventional Big Bang theory says nothing about where all the matter came from. The theory really assumes that for every particle that we see in the universe today, there was, at the very beginning, at least some precursor particle, if not the same particle, with no explanation of where all those particles came from.”

“Play for the name on the front of the shirt, and they’ll remember the name on the back.”

“I don't have any children, but if I had a baby, I would have to name it so I'd buy a baby naming book. Or I would invite somebody over who had a cast on.”

“I hope my fans remember my name is Gene Vincent and not Gene Autry.”