There is no example of someone reading their scripture and saying, 'I have a prediction about the world that no one knows yet, because this gave me insight. Let's go test that prediction,' and have the prediction be correct.

There is always a place I can take someone's curiosity and land where they end up enlightened when we're done. That's my challenge as an educator. No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don't ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.

In all civilizations we've studied, all cultures that we know of across the Earth and across time have invested some kind of attempt to understanding where where, where they come from, and where they are going.

Let's say intelligence is your ability to compose poetry, symphonies, do art, math and science. Chimps can't do any of that, yet we share 99 percent DNA. Everything that we are, that distinguishes us from chimps, emerges from that one-percent difference.

When I was living on my own, for a footballer it's easy to do the things that you're not supposed to, or not what the sport science team says. For example, if there's a packet of crisps, you're going to eat them. The same with a packet of sweets. Go to bed at a certain time? You're not going to if you're on your own.

Vaccines and antibiotics have made many infectious diseases a thing of the past; we've come to expect that public health and modern science can conquer all microbes. But nature is a formidable adversary.

Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

I still tend to read more urban fantasy and romance than science-fiction, but every once in a while, a couple of books will come along and knock my socks off.