[T]he real world out there … must exist independently of us.

Don’t start with space or anything moving in space. Start with something that is purely quantum mechanical and has, instead of space, some kind of purely quantum structure.

The search for quantum gravity is a true quest.

We need a theory about what makes up space, a background-independent theory.

More and more, I have the feeling that quantum theory and general relativity are both deeply wrong about the nature of time.

[I]n both quantum theory and general relativity, we encounter predictions of physically sensible quantities becoming infinite.

SU(5) is the most elegant way imaginable of unifying quarks with leptons, and it leads to a codification of the properties of the standard model in simple terms. Even after twenty-five years I still find it stunning that SU(5) doesn’t work.

In this way, time is represented as if it were another dimension of space. Motion is frozen, and a whole history of constant motion and change is presented to us as something static and unchanging. If I had to guess (and guessing is what I do for a living), this is the scene of the crime.

… the greatest heroes in the history of science…. No one in human history has ever guessed correctly about such a large expansion of the known world.