On life

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet.”  “Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.” And: “if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.” 

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“However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope,” 

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On living with a disability

“My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well, and don’t regret the things it interferes with. Don’t be disabled in spirit, as well as physically,” he told the New York Times in 2011. Hawking was frequently frank about his battle with ALS, a degenerative neurological disease that often proves fatal. But he defied doctors expectations, living for over half a century after he was diagnosed in 1963, at the age of 21. The year before, he said in an introduction to the 2010 TV documentary series Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking: “Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free.”

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On being diagnosed with ALS

“My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus,”

“Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.”

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On being a celebrity

“The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized,”

“It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away.”

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On persistence

"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don't just give up."

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On the universe

"It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the people you love."

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