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Maybe is not a theory, you know, it is merely maybe.

She was grateful for something more than smooth, meaningless phrases. Better, the man had not reverted to the hedged-in, minimize-possible-damage style. And the first of all the commandments shall be: Cover Thy Ass.

Her eyes flipped down through the usual scandal, gossip, and politics, noting that there didn’t seem to be much difference between them anymore.

In popularizing a scientific development it was always crucial to sail the narrow strait between the Scylla of professional contempt and the Charybdis of public befuddlement.

She always dressed well, but he recognized the signs of insecurity; certitude was inversely proportional to the amount of makeup.

It was an example of what he thought of as the Law of Controversy: Passion was inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.

Everybody feels he has a right to a life of luxury — or at least comfort — so there’s a lot of frustration and resentment when the dream craps out.

To shine is better than to reflect.

Yes, perhaps that was it. For decades now the picture of the world painted by the scientists had become strange, distant, unbelievable. Far easier, then, to ignore it than try to understand. Things were too complicated. Why bother? Turn on the telly, luv. Right.

No matter how much you plan for it, the real thing seems curiously, well, unreal.

Science is like literature, a continuing dialog among diverse and conflicting voices, no one ever wholly right or wholly wrong, but a steady conversation forever provisional and personal and living.

It was getting the results that made science worth doing; the accolades were a thin, secondary pleasure.