“Now you've all the equipment the greatest possess,
And some men have risen to glory with less,
So don't be afraid, but go to it;
If it's honest, and useful, and ought to be done,
Don't think it beneath you, but jump in, my son -
Go straight to your duty and do it.”

“Now that I have done it, I don't think I'll ever go back.”

“Honest. It's almost always best to go with honest. It means you never have to worry about getting your story straight.”

“Are we making more mistakes now? I don't think so. Science is a high-risk activity. And when you do science—this is very important incidentally for the general public, and for policy makers—if you are not wasting some of your money, you are not doing good science. It's a funny way to say this. You've got to back high-risk opportunities. And high-risk opportunities means some fraction of them are going to fail. And I think in any science funding scenario, you've got to say, 10, 20, maybe even 30% of your funds are going to be invested in failures.”

“Why don't you talk, and go straight, and let all be well?”

“If you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward.”

“Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”

“Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.”

“If you feel the urge, don't be afraid to go on a wild goose chase. What do you think wild geese are for anyway?”

“People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don't sit looking at it - walk.”