"Neither space nor time has any existence outside the system of evolving relationships that comprises the universe. Physicists refer to this feature of general relativity as background independence."

“We are the result of processes much more complicated than the small aspects of our lives and societies over which we have some control.”

“String theory seems to be incompatible with a world in which a cosmological constant has a positive sign, which is what the observations indicate.”

“There is no meaning to space that is independent of the relationships among real things of the world. ...Space is nothing apart from the things that exist. ...If we take out all the words we are not left with an empty sentence, we are left with nothing.”

“Time is described only in terms of change in the network of relationships that describes space.”

“In quantum theory, distance is inverse to energy, because you need particles of very high energy to probe very short distances. The inverse of the Planck energy is the Planck length.”

“While most people... were seeking to modify the principles of either relativity or quantum theory, we surprised ourselves by succeeding in putting them together without modifying their principles.”