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Science’s success did not need a God to explain it; the world was enough.

He watched her putting away bacon and toast.

“I remember breakfasts like that.”

“First Law of Thermodynamics still applies. If you eat it, and you don’t burn it off, you sit on it.”

“You burn it, looks like. Exercise?

“Worry. Saves time and you don’t have to shower.”

This was what never failed to stir her—the unfathomable gulf between today’s thinking and the way the ancients thought. They were truly alien, not merely innocent agrarians with a foolish faith.

Teaching was all very fine, but research made the heart sing.

A damned big clue, but pointing at what? When in doubt, get some numbers.

Prolonged exposure to journalists made her distrust any news report; they got matters wrong so casually, even the simple ones.

Just because something’s crazy, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Still, Claire hated Charlotte Brontë’s comment that she would have given all her talent to be beautiful. That condemned you always to play somebody else’s game—and, when your looks failed—finally to lose.

Only senators and simpletons thought science took place in neatly drawn boxes.

Ours is not to reason why, ours is to measure and report—the experimenter’s credo.

Hubris. They disliked questions unless there were clear answers. They believed so much in their method that they conjured up certainty out of undeniable risk.

She sighed. “We’re just guessing.”

“When you have a Ph. D., you call them hypotheses, not guesses.”