There's two tiers of science fiction: the McDonalds sci-fi like Star Trek, where they have an adventure and solve it before the last commercial, and there are books that once you've read, you never look at the world the same way again.

I have memories - but only a fool stores his past in the future.

When we look up at the night sky and wonder, 'Is there anyone else out there?' we're also asking who we are in relation to them.

Who are we?' And to me that's the essential question that's always been in science fiction. A lot of science fiction stories are - at their very best - evocations of that question. When we look up at the night sky and wonder, 'Is there anyone else out there?' we're also asking who we are we in relation to them.

Music, which should pulsate with life, needs new means of expression, and science alone can infuse it with youthful vigor.

When I ask myself what are the great things we got from the Renaissance, it's the great art, the great music, the science insights of Leonardo da Vinci. Two hundred years from now, when you ask what are the great things that came from this era, I think it's going to be an understanding of the universe around us.

But honestly, if you do a rigorous survey of my work, I'll bet you'll find that biology is a theme far more often than physical science.

My father was a physicist, while I am a biogeochemist. I live to study plants, and he has never had more than a generic interest in biology.