Judith Viorst Quotes

Through basic science literacy, people can understand the policy choices we need to be making. Scientists are not necessarily the greatest communicators, but science and communication is one of the fundamentals we need to address. People are interested.

General writing about science, even if we do it badly, helps us to see our work in perspective and broadens our vision.

If scientists could communicate more in their own voices - in a familiar tone, with a less specialized vocabulary - would a wide range of people understand them better? Would their work be better understood by the general public, policy-makers, funders, and, even in some cases, other scientists?

One of the best and most responsible things a scientist can do is to write for the popular press.

People are interested in science, but they don't always know they're interested in science, and so I try to find a way to get them interested.

Scientists aren't necessarily good communicators, because they aren't trained to be good communicators.

I learned I'm not a science writer. I'm not very good at describing how something is happening. I try to describe "So What?"

Unfortunately, science cannot be reduced to short, catchy phrases. And if this is all that the general public can comprehend, it's no wonder that we spend so much of our time in the interminable debate about belief in God, or lack thereof.

I really don't think of myself as a science writer.

Thinking about the universe has now been handed over to specialists. The rest of us merely read about it.

I would say it's important for scientists to speak out when they can and when they can be listened to.

It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

If scientists can't communicate with the public, with policy makers, with one another, the future is going to be held back. We're not going to have the future that we could have.

Over the last 25 years, since a lot of science writing became accessible to layman, I've become quite a consumer of science. As a child, I wasn't streamed into science, and I regret that now.

I like to believe that science is becoming mainstream. It should have never been something that sort of geeky people do and no one else thinks about. Whether or not, it will always be what geeky people do. It should, as a minimum, be what everybody thinks about because science is all around us.

I vowed to myself that when I grew up and became a theoretical physicist, in addition to doing research, I would write books that I would have liked to have read as a child. So whenever I write, I imagine myself, as a youth, reading my books, being thrilled by the incredible advances being made in physics and science.

All writers are going to have to learn more about science, because it's such an interesting part of their environment.

Science shouldn't be just for scientists, and there are encouraging signs that it is becoming more pervasive in culture and the media.

The people who work in the scientific field, they need help to convey what it's about.

I had not expected 'A Brief History of Time' to be a best seller. It was my first popular book and aroused a great deal of interest. Initially, many people found it difficult to understand. I therefore decided to try to write a new version that would be easier to follow.

Scientists must venture outside their comfort zones to show the public how cool - and how important - their work really is.

I want very much to communicate science to as wide an audience as possible, but not at a cost of dumbing down, and not at a cost in getting things right.

I'm writing a science book - a sort of compendium of all the ways I've found of explaining things to my artsy friends over the years.

My sense, talking to the general public around the country, is that most people don't have a very high level of scientific literacy.

Of course 'Horizon' had made an impact on me from a young age, but it was also humbling to meet and interview eminent scientists, and hear their high opinion of the series and of the science presented on the BBC more generally.