Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Day by day, I'm kind of a bore.
To me, death is dark, pain, grief.
Death. It doesn't have to be boring.
Gravitation is the lust of the cosmos.
Sexual desire is a state not unlike hunger.
Hormones are nature's three bottles of beer.
Wisdom comes with age, but keep it to yourself.
The Internet is a boon for hypochondriacs like me.
Worry lives a long way from rational thought."---Self
Every mode of travel has its signature mental aberration.
It is the mind that speaks a woman's heart, not the vaginal walls.
Normally I object to strangers beaming force fields into my brain.
I would have sold my wife and children into slavery for a ride into space.
If I couldn't use food or love to define contentment, I would use reading.
All good research-whether for science or for a book-is a form of obsession.
I rarely listen to music while writing. I wish I could, but it distracts me.
A space station is a rangy monstrosity, a giant erector set built by a madman.
Flatulence peaks twice a day... five hours after lunch and five hours after dinner.
You are a person and then you cease to be a person, and a cadaver takes your place.
People are vomiting unrealistically in movies, and something must be done about it.
I've been writing full-time since about 1984 - mostly magazine features and columns.
Space doesn't just encompass the sublime and the ridiculous. It erases the line between.
All of my books tend to be about things going on in labs that you wouldn't really expect.
I began thinking about my skeleton, this solid, beautiful thing inside me that I would never see.
In 'Packing for Mars,' I tried to convey the importance of getting young people interested in science.
Instead, I quietly excused myself and went to the bar, to commune with spirits I know how to relate to.
Softball is the reason Washing Machines and Bleach are so popular. Don't think so? Just ask a softball Mom.
Astronauts are like these mythic legends, but really, they are just regular people, people who wear chinos.
I'm one of those goobers who comes out of the polling place actually wearing the 'I VOTED' sticker on my jacket.
I talk to a lot of people who, when you try to sum them up in a couple of sentences, seem like they must be insane.
The broader the topic, the easier it is, not only to fill a book, but to set the bar pretty high for really great stuff.
There are people who would love to spend their last ten years, or five years, or whatever it is, on the surface of Mars.
Many people will find this book disrespectful. There is nothing amusing about being dead, they will say. Ah, but there is.
Pet foods come in a variety of flavors because that's what humans like, and we assume our pets like what we like. We're wrong.
When I'm done with a book, I always give it to someone with expertise in the topic and tell them to flag all of my stupid mistakes.
The writing is always the easy part, provided I can get the good material. It's the getting of the good material that's a challenge.
Gravity disappears again, and we rise up off the floor like spooks from a grave. It's like the Rapture in here every thirty seconds.
Editors are more concerned with the first chapters of a book; that's what everyone reads first in the bookstore or in the online sample.
It is interesting to come across people who feel that a ghost communicating via a spell-checker is less far-fetched than a software glitch.
People don't appreciate their intestines until something goes wrong. But I always hope that people gain a little appreciation for their guts.
Literally thousands of e-mails over the course of a book go out to people I've never met, people who might end up being the focus of a chapter.
I'm not a quick wit. I'm only funny on paper. I mean, I'm not totally humorless! It's just that in person, I'm not quite the way I am on paper.
Fletcherizing is gross. I tried it once. I tried to go until it's all liquid, and it just creeps you out to be focusing so much on your chewing.
A fine book, in the perfect setting, when there's all the time in the world to read it: Life holds greater joys, but none come to mind just now.
To me, NASA is kind of the magical kingdom. I was sort of a geek, and you go there, and there are just these wondrously strange things and people.
I believe that not everything we humans encounter in our lives can be neatly and convincingly tucked away inside the orderly cabinetry of science.
The simplest strategy for bouts of noxious flatus is to not care. Or perhaps to take advantage of a gastroenterologist I know: get a dog. (To blame.)
I'm drawn to the taboos that surround the human body. I find it fascinating that we are repelled by many of the acts and processes that keep us alive.
If you get a colonoscopy, you should really insist they give you no drugs - then you do get to see what it's like to swim through your own intestines.
In my whole life, I've never vomited from seeing something disgusting. Does it really even happen, outside of movies and TV? I believe it may be a myth.