I set up situations that involve abandoning control and finding out what happens.

Today, we’re still loaded down – and, to some extent, embarrassed – by ancient myths, but we respect them as part of the same impulse that has led to the modern, scientific kind of myth. But we now have the opportunity to discover, for the first time, the way the universe is in fact constructed as opposed to how we would wish it to be constructed.

I will carry on writing, to be sure. But I don’t know if I would want to publish again after Harry Potter.

Life is anything but predictable.

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

Adventure is worthwhile in itself.

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

With all of their benefits, and there are many, one of the things I regret about e-books is that they have taken away the necessity of trawling foreign bookshops or the shelves of holiday houses to find something to read. I’ve come across gems and stinkers that way, and both can be fun.

To discover and know has always been a deep tendency of our nature. Can we not recognize it already in caveman?

Even Hubble hasn’t found yet the end of this universe, and we don’t know that it has any end.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

I’m not afraid to look like a big, hairy, smelly, foreign devil in Tokyo, though I do my best not to, I really do.

What I’m trying to do is, is to make a significant difference in space flight. And help make space flight accessible to almost anyone.

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‚Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?‘

Any East Coast road trip we have is very exciting, just being on the road, taking it all in.

The future is called ‚perhaps‘, which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.

It’s hard to be clear about who you are when you are carrying around a bunch of baggage from the past. I’ve learned to let go and move more quickly into the next place.

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.

In such a porcelain life, one likes to be sure that all is well lest one stumble upon one’s hopes in a pile of broken crockery.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning when first I considered going. Once faced and settled there really wasn’t any good reason to refer to it.

Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow – that’s vulnerability.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

I’ve tried different things through the years to get some play on mainstream. I’ll try to tailor-make it.

You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in – in 2007, we just didn’t know it was uncertain. It was – uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn’t know it.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.

When I was a little girl, I always dreamed of being a star. I didn’t really know what all that meant. I didn’t know.

We seem gradually to be groping toward an understanding of the world of subatomic particles, but we really do not know how far we have yet to go in this task.

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.

On the RFactor model that comes with the ‚Pro-Sim,‘ everything is balanced and measured. If you go up on the rear ride height, for example, it changes the airflow and the downforce of the car. You learn by trying different things, which gives you a better idea when you’re on a race weekend.

What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?

My comedy is different every time I do it. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail.

It is not scientifically possible to accurately predict the outcome of an action. To suggest otherwise runs contrary to historical experience and the nature of war.

When trying to remember my share in the glow of the eternal present, in the smile of God, I return to my childhood, too, for that is where the most significant discoveries turn up.

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

Forget the past.

Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.

It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn’t get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.

New discoveries in science will continue to create a thousand new frontiers for those who still would adventure.

If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.

In the early days of aviation, there was a great deal of experimentation and a high death rate.

We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time.

If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.

I don’t think that you can invent on behalf of customers unless you’re willing to think long-term, because a lot of invention doesn’t work. If you’re going to invent, it means you’re going to experiment, and if you’re going to experiment, you’re going to fail, and if you’re going to fail, you have to think long term.

Our need for certainty in an endeavor as uncertain as raising children makes explicit ‚how-to-parent‘ strategies both seductive and dangerous.

At some point, you grow out of being attracted to that flame that burns you over and over and over again.

You learn a lot from traveling around.

I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.

By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.

I’m not the sort of person who gives up on things. The first time we crossed the Atlantic in the balloon, it crashed, and we went on and did the Pacific. First time we crossed the Atlantic in a boat, it sank, and we went on and got the record. So, generally speaking, we will pick ourselves up, brush ourselves down, and carry on.

My son likes to go see mines and electric plants, or the Large Hadron Collider, and we’ve had a chance to see a lot of interesting stuff.

Your timeless self does not age and has no fear of the future. Contemplate your physical self and all its possessions, and practice laughing peacefully at it all.

I’m a spokesman for myself. It just so happens that there’s a bunch of people that are concerned with what I have to say. I find that frightening at times because I’m just as confused as most people. I don’t have the answers for anything.

The balloons only have one life and the only way of finding out whether they work is to attempt to fly around the world.