16 quotes found
“Love and learning are similar in that they can never be wasted.”
“Being paid to wonder seems like a heavy responsibility at times.”
“I wonder who else in the world was having such an exquisite dawn.”
“People don't know to make a leaf, but they know how to destroy one.”
“I have accepted that I don't know all the things that I ought to know, but I do know things that I need to know.”
“Oh, I'm not worried about him,' returned Bill. 'He's gone. It's not any more complicated than that. Honestly, if I admit it, it's me that I feel bad for.' He walked away from me and looked out towa...”
“After scientists broke open the coat of a lotus seed (Nelumbo nucifera) and coddled the embryo into growth, they kept the empty husk. When they radiocarbon-dated this discarded outer shell, they di...”
“My mother taught me that reading is a kind of work, and that every paragraph merits exertion, and in this way, I learned how to absorb difficult books. Soon after I went to kindergarten, however, I...”
“People will tell you that you have to know math to be a scientist, or physics or chemistry. They're wrong. ... What comes first is a question, and you're already there. It's not nearly as involved ...”
“You may have heard that America doesn't have enough scientists and is in danger of "falling behind" (whatever that means) because of it. Tell this to an academic scientist and watch her laugh. For ...”
“Our world is falling apart quietly. Human civilization has reduced the plant, a four-million-year-old life form, into three things: food, medicine, and wood. In our relentless and ever-intensifying...”
“Once your baby tree is in the ground, check it daily, because the first three years are critical. Remember that you are your tree's only friend in a hostile world.”
“The leaves of the world comprise countless billion elaborations of a single, simple machine designed for one job only a job upon which hinges humankind. Leaves make sugar. Plants are the only thin...”
“Bill was wrestling with his undercooked chicken. "Wow," I remarked while examining my own plate. "I don't think I can eat this." "I know. It's gross," he conceded. "But it's free, so I scarf down s...”
“Plants are not like us. They are different in critical and fundamental ways. As I catalog the differences between plants and animals, the horizon stretches out before me faster than I can travel an...”
“No risk is more terrifying than that taken by the first root. A lucky root will eventually find water, but its first job is to anchor -- to anchor an embryo and forever end its mobile phase, howeve...”
