Alan Guth quotes:

Space is certainly something more complicated than the average person would probably realize. Space is not just an empty background in which things happen.

When one studies the properties of atoms, one found that the reality is far stranger than anybody would have invented in the form of fiction. Particles really do have the possibility of, in some sense, being in more than one place at one time.

The Big Bang theory says nothing about what banged, why it banged, or what happened before it banged.

Despite its name, the big bang theory is not really a theory of a bang at all. It is really only a theory of the aftermath of a bang.

Our best theory of describing space at a fundamental level is probably string theory.

In the context of general relativity, space almost is a substance. It can bend and twist and stretch, and probably the best way to think about space is to just kind of imagine a big piece of rubber that you can pull and twist and bend.

The question of the origin of the matter in the universe is no longer thought to be beyond the range of science -- everything can be created from nothing...it is fair to say that the universe is the ultimate free lunch.

The recent developments in cosmology strongly suggest that the universe may be the ultimate free lunch.

It's actually safe to create a universe in your basement.