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Scientific understanding is often beautiful, a profoundly aesthetic experience which gives pleasure not unlike the reading of a great poem.

Strictly speaking, the idea of a scientific poem is probably as nonsensical as that of a poetic science.

Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge.

I think there's a certain lyricism in the telling of a scientific story.

The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something.

My thoughts can sometimes be spurred by what I read, but my reading is extremely eclectic.

I consider what I write to be literature. I choose the words carefully.

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.

What I am going to write is the last of what I have to say. I will say that literature is the only consciousness we possess and that its role as consciousness must inform us of our ability to comprehend the hideous danger of nuclear power.

In any case, A New Kind of Science is a wonderful book, and I'm still absorbing its teachings.