"Toxins love to get you while you're young. Lead, mercury, secondhand smoke and sundry other environmental nasties do a lot more damage when tissue is immature, vulnerable and growing than when it's mature and comparatively fixed."

"Becoming food savvy is one thing, but it's amazing how fast savvy turns to snooty, and snooty leaves you preparing three-hour meals that break your budget and that the kids won't even eat."

"The best thing about science is that hard, empirical answers are always there if you look hard enough. The best thing about religion is that the very absence of that certainty is what requires - and gives rise to - deep feelings of faith."

"Older fatherhood isn't all bad: testosterone rates drop about 1% per year as men age, making them less reactive and more patient, and a professionally established middle-aged man is likely to have more time and money to devote to his kids than a twenty-something who's just getting started."

"Courage is not the absence of trembling, but the decision to step forward regardless. Let this simple maxim guide your daily deeds."

"We do not remember the passing of hours, but the resonance of moments. Let this simple maxim guide your daily deeds."

"To question with sincerity is the first step toward dismantling dogma. A lesson woven into the fabric of human history."

"Why do we capital-N Nerds love Mars so much? Because it's beautiful, it's tough, it's buried in our mythic, childhood memories. It's covered with human triumphs but also with sad stories of failure."