Statistically it's a certainty there are hugely advanced civilizations, intelligences, life forms out there. I believe they're so advanced they're ev….

The way you remember the past depends upon your hope for the future. And if what you see in your future has no hope, it has no potential, then you vi….

I'm such a long-term investor, I've never really let go and celebrated what I did with the Hubble telescope..

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 ….

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 ….

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'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 ….

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….

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….

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,….

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

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….

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

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….

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

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….

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,….

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….

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