I think the roots of this antagonism to science run very deep. They're ancient. We see them in Genesis, this first story, this founding myth of ours,… - Ann Druyan

One starry night, as we lay together on the deck of a ship in the Pacific, we spotted a dolphin couple riding the wave off the hull. We watched them for about 10 minutes, when suddenly in a single graceful motion they peeled off the wave at a right angle and disappeared into the deep. They moved in unison as if they had been communicating in some mysterious way. Carl looked at me and smiled: "That's us, Annie," he said. We had 20 years until his death made me a permanent exile from that world we discovered together. I was suicidal. But our children were still young and as their mother I had no choice but to live. So I carried what I learned with Carl inside me and have done my best to keep his flame burning. I rededicated my life to continuing the work we had done together.

think it's good that we die. I just wish that more of us could have more fulfillment, and know the beauty of life more fully. When I hear about Silicon Valley billionaires who want to live forever, I think to myself: There’s no higher entitlement than thinking that you should live forever, when part of the beauty of nature is that even the stars die. That's what Emily Dickinson said: 'That it will never come again/is what makes life so sweet.' I believe that.

The words Einstein chose to open the 1939 World's Fair echo in my brain: "If science, like art, is to perform its mission truly and fully, its achievements must enter not only superficially but with their inner meaning into the consciousness of the people."