“Presumably there is indeed no purpose in the ultimate fate of the cosmos, but do any of us really tie our life’s hopes to the ultimate fate of the cosmos anyway? Of course we don’t; not if we are sane. Our lives are ruled by all sorts of closer, warmer, human ambitions and perceptions. To accuse science of robbing life of the warmth that makes it worth living is so preposterously mistaken, so diametrically opposite to my own feelings and those of most working scientists, I am almost driven to the despair of which I am wrongly suspected.”

--Richard Dawkins

Which Woody Allen movie had the young Allen explaining to his therapist how nothing mattered because the universe was going to end? Was it Annie Hall?

The 30th anniversary edition of The Selfish Gene is being published this year. Part of Dawkins' new preface can be read here.