“It turns out one of my dad's best friends was Carl Sagan when I was li...” — David Grinspoon Quote

“It turns out one of my dad's best friends was Carl Sagan when I was little. They were both Harvard professors.”

“As a young planet, Venus was losing hydrogen rapidly to space. The oceans boiled off, and after some period of time, perhaps 600 million years, there was no surface water.”

“The planet Mars - crimson and bright, filling our telescopes with vague intimations of almost-familiar landforms - has long formed a celestial tabula rasa on which we have inscribed our planetological theories, utopian fantasies, and fears of alien invasion or ecological ruin.”

“If I went to any other college, I probably would have been pre-med. But I felt like I had freedom to do what I wanted to do at Harvard.”

“Harvard was the most intimidating experience. I felt so out of my league there.”

“I just thought Harvard sounded great. So let's see if I get in. I didn't really have a big back-up plan.”