Whenever I see a nighttime picture of Earth from space, with its glowing lights, I am stirred by its beauty.

Earth is a stunningly lovely planet for so many reasons. Among these is the wondrous presence of curious, artful, inventive humanity.

Among the radio astronomers of SETI - the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence - it's only sort-of a joke that the true hallmark of intelligent life is the creation of radio astronomy.

It is said that Mahatma Gandhi, when asked about Western civilization, remarked, 'I think it would be a good idea.' That's how I feel about intelligent life on Earth, especially when I think about the question of what truly intelligent life might look like elsewhere in the universe.

It's one of the big mysteries about Venus: How did it get so different from Earth when it seems likely to have started so similarly? The question becomes richer when you consider astrobiology, the possibility that Venus and Earth were very similar during the time of the origin of life on Earth.

We need visions of a future in which we have applied our infinite creativity to the task of living on a finite world, where we have embraced our role, become comfortable and proficient as planet-shapers, and learned to use our technological skills to enhance the survival prospects not just of humanity but of all life on Earth.

The more we look at the kinds of soils and the nature of the atmosphere and the polar caps, it all adds up to tell us that some liquid, which we very much believe was water, did flow in abundance on Mars in the past.

In my Ph.D. thesis, written in 1989, I discussed the fact that when a civilization develops the technology to prevent catastrophic asteroid impacts, it marks a significant moment in the evolution of the planet.

I don't see it as coincidence that the great acceleration of the Anthropocene influences on Earth came during the same decades as our first exploration of the other planets.

As a kid, I became a total SF geek. It started in the 5th grade with Asimov's 'Lucky Starr' series of what would now be called 'young adult' novels of adventures in the solar system.

I think the best SF writers are very aware of what we, in the scientific community, are doing, thinking, and discovering.

There's something cool about being involved in new missions to other planets.

I'd like to jump a couple hundred years into the future and work with the scientists who are getting back the first information from our probes to planets orbiting nearby stars.

We can look out on an alien landscape that no one has seen before and find it beautiful.

I think chemists always think they know more than they know, because nature has a lot of possible pathways it can try.

In environments that are energy-rich but liquid-poor, like near the surface of Titan, natural selection may favor organisms that use their metabolic heat to melt their own watering holes.

Among the plausible niches for extraterrestrial life in our solar system, the clouds of Venus are among the most accessible and the least well explained.

I do feel like anything benefits from character logic. That can be from the dumbest ad to the greatest Shakespearean drama to the silliest 'Saturday Night Live' sketch. There is a certain specificity in detail, which you can get when you're paying attention to stuff like that.

In a sense, human beings are human beings. Their feelings of aloneness, of brokenness, their feelings of hurt and disappointment, are universal. It's the ways they choose to act on their feelings that separates them.

I got the 'Stranger Things' script, like, a week before NBC canceled 'State of Affairs.' I really had this moment where I'm like, 'I'm done.' My neuroses is very sophisticated: I was like, 'I am done. Hollywood is done with David Harbour. They are finished.'

Sometimes I feel like, those superheroes, if you threw a cookie at them, they would be more terrified than the villain because they might have to eat a carbohydrate.

Social media should be more like a cocktail party than anything else. You can have your fun jokes, and you can also express yourself and your beliefs. It's a conversation, not a sledgehammer.

I think one of the worst notes I think I've ever received was Ang Lee on 'Brokeback Mountain.' He came in on coverage, and he was like, 'More, more handsome.' I was like, 'I'll try that.'

I loved 'True Detective' so much in Season 1, and then when the Season 2 monstrosity came around, I was like, 'What is this show? What have you done to this show?'

We are united in that we are all human beings, and we are all together on this horrible, painful, joyous, exciting, and mysterious ride that is being alive.

The interesting thing about my career is for years I was trying to do that thing of getting in shape and looking cool - I would look at myself in camera angles and think how my chin looked the best and all this stuff. And I really couldn't get that much work.

I feel like the most human among us are the weirdest among us. Those voices can be the most creative and the most special. You look around at your parents, your friends, your aunts and uncles, and you realize nobody is normal.

Those Duffer Brothers really know how to tell a story, and I think it makes you want to watch. 'Stranger Things' is remarkably watchable.

Netflix sees people as users or subscribers or customers. Historically, networks have seen people as viewers.

I love taking people on that journey, which I feel like can open them up to seeing human beings a little more complexly. People that you originally don't like, maybe they have reasons for the way they are, and maybe we can start to understand each other a little better as opposed to being quick to judge and dismiss people.

The fact that I got famous and became a sex symbol around my normal, frumpy, love-handled self is so gratifying - and, dare I say, culturally gratifying as well.

When I was in 8th grade, I saw Branagh's 'Henry V' in the Paris Theater, and it changed my life.

Untangling Christmas lights is the true tragedy of 'Stranger Things.'

The mythos of superheroes is our mythos today. They are American myths. 'Captain America,' 'Iron Man,' 'Hulk' - these are the biggest movies in the world. But sometimes, superhero movies can be a little bit thin.

A lot of the characters I gravitate towards feel like outsiders.

I was sober for, like, a year and a half, and I was 25, and I actually did have a manic episode, and I was diagnosed as bipolar.

At the end of the day, my biggest fear in life is that I'm gonna wind up being an actor who plays the dad on a TV show like 'Full House' or 'Small Wonder' or something - I'm, like, the desexualized dad in the show 'Alf.'

Always, with speeches, I feel like it's an opportunity to say something.

All of Aaron Sorkin's characters are so smart.

The fact is, for years, I had been trapped in a certain narcissism and a desire to have a certain body and look sexy.

At the end of the day, what I try to bring to villainous characters is a sense of humanity.

I'm around 6'4' and 240 pounds. So I rarely feel that intimidated by other men. But I've got to give it up to Terry Bradshaw. That guy is a complete bulldog.

I feel like Shakespeare is so epic, in a way that sci-fi genre stuff is epic, it transcends the mundane, and it takes you to this place of real passion and real beauty.

Myself, I suffer from loneliness. And I think we all feel alone. I'm looking for stories that help people deal with loneliness and help them if they are monsters: they don't have to undertake monstrous actions. And maybe they're not monsters.

I am a dude who is meant to be on a couch in New York City thumbing through magazines.

I feel, in storytelling, people are so afraid that you won't get it unless you pound them over the head.

One of the most beautiful things about Shakespeare's Hamlet is when he stops in the middle of the play to ask, 'To be or not to be?' Then, right at the end, he decides to 'let be.' The first season of 'Stranger Things' was Hopper asking whether 'to be or not to be' and the second is to 'let be.'

I really like big swashbuckling superhero films, but I feel like that Marvel universe is not adult enough.

All the work I do is personal, so the good stuff and the bad stuff that you see in there is all good stuff and bad stuff that I have, and part of the journey, for me, has been to embrace these things that I find embarrassing about myself: my stubbornness, my ego, my maudlin-ness - these things that I see myself do, and I go, 'Oh, David, stop that!'

I can like Jack Nicolson's Joker, and I can like Heath Ledger's Joker. There's other Jokers I don't have to like.