Getting out of the comfortable path, that's what exploration is all about..

There really isn't a time to pause and have a celebration. I feel so serious about the whole thing..

Their spirituality was in nature, even though Emerson was a preacher on the pulpit, he ended up going out into nature for direct, face-to-face commun….

The statistics of life out there and the statistics of intelligent beings and advanced civilization is a certainty, the way I look at it. It has not ….

It's hard to say what drives a three year-old, but I think I had a sense that nature was my solace, and nature was a place in which there was beauty,….

Most of our history in space has been communicated in terms of action - what people do, a chronological list of events which have transpired - as opp….

Poetry is its own medium; it's very different than writing prose. Poetry can talk in an imagistic sense; it has particular ways of catching an enviro….

The way you remember the past depends upon your hope for the future..

That I learned even as a three year-old that I see this world that is really a mess and I learned to say, this is not me. I am not the one that is me….

Hubble touches people. When you're looking that far out, you're giving people their place in the universe, it touches people. Science is often visual….

I work for perfection, for perfection's sake. I don't care what the external reasons are. And it's much more like a ballerina on opening night. You'v….

I’m not a risk taker. But astronauts are professionals, so you get out on the field and play ball. I tried to take it in stride because that’s what I….

I came from an extraordinarily dysfunctional family, full of abuse and alcoholism. And eventually everyone within the family had committed suicide..

I've already written 300 space poems. But I look upon my ultimate form as being a poetic prose. When you read it, it appears to be prose, but within ….

And so, I was not a military test pilot, but as soon as NASA expressed an interest in flying scientists and people who were not military test pilots,….

If we ever start communicating with living creatures from other planets, the number one priority is, how are you going to communicate information? Ev….

It is humanity's destiny to explore the universe. When we start thinking and working on that cosmic level, we will transcend our parochial difference….

I never read a single book as a child. I did not read as a child. I worked on the farm. I had books in the classroom, but that was it. I never read a….

Whitman expressed the whole universe in his poetry and in his catalogues. That attitude almost defines what we call American romanticism, or American….

I have a great relationship with animals, and with children. I get to their level. I try to see the way a child looks at the world, it's hugely diffe….

I think there are huge lessons there, for young people who are getting started in life, as well as other people. And that is, to take responsibility ….