Oh Julie, wouldn’t I know if you were dead? Wouldn’t I feel it happening, like a jolt of electricity to my heart?
[Scientists] define these [terms] in tight phrases which convey a meaning only to those who already understand it.
We are having wool pulled over our eyes if we let ourselves be convinced that scientists, taken as a group, are anything special in the way of brains. They are very ordinary professional men, and all they know is their own trade, just like all other professional men. There are some geniuses among them, just as there are mental giants in any other field of endeavor.
If this "critical openminded attitude". . . is wanted, the question at once arises, Is it science that should be studied in order to achieve it? Why not study law? A judge has to do everything that a scientist is exhorted to do in the way of withholding judgment until all the facts are in, and then judging impartially on the merits of the case as well as he can. . . . Why not a course in Sherlock Holmes? The detectives, or at least the detective-story writers, join with the scientists in excoriating "dogmatic prejudice, lying, falsification of facts, and data, and willful fallacious reasoning. "
Physical scientists probably deserve the reputation they enjoy for incorruptibility and unswerving devotion to pure truth. The reason for this is that it is not worth while to bribe them.
There's many a true word spoken in jest; scientists are abominably solemn; therefore scientists miss many a true word.
The first thing to realize about physics. . . is its extraordinary indirectness. . . . For physics is not about the real world, it is about "abstractions" from the real world, and this is what makes it so scientific. . . . Theoretical physics runs merrily along with these unreal abstractions, but its conclusions are checked, at every possible point, by experiments.
Jerry Krause must have pictures of his boss's wife having sex with a monkey.
If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read.
Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plan religion.
Every time before I throw my first pitch, I am praying. And not only that, in the bullpen I am praying.