Science is not about control. It is about cultivating a perpetual condition of wonder in the face of something that forever grows one step richer and subtler than our latest theory about it. It is about reverence, not mastery. – Richard Powers
I think that if the novels task is to describe where we find ourselves and how we live now, the novelist must take a good, hard look at the most central facts of contemporary life – technology and science. – Richard Powers
I write the way you might arrange flowers. Not every try works, but each one launches another. Every constraint, even dullness, frees up a new design. – Richard Powers
Librarian is a service occupation. Gas station attendant of the mind. – Richard Powers
A permanent base on Mars would have a number of advantages beyond being a bonanza for planetary science and geology. If, as some evidence suggests, exotic micro-organisms have arisen independently of terrestrial life, studying them could revolutionise biology, medicine and biotechnology. – Paul Davies