Edwin Turner discusses his childhood experiences looking up at the stars; background of parents; encouragement and support of parents; early interest in science fiction and in history; childhood fascination with the scale of the universe; education at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); influence of Philip Morrison and Irwin Shapiro at MIT; preference for an open universe; dislike of missing mass that is invisible; scientific interests at MIT; graduate education at California Institute of Technology (Caltech); influence of Wallace Sargent; dislike of problem-set approach to education at Caltech; thesis work on dynamics of binary galaxies; influence of Ostriker-Peebles-Yahil work on dark matter and massive haloes in galaxies on Turner's observational thesis to measure masses of galaxies; interaction with Allan Sandage on philosophy of experimental science; Turner's surprise at finding dark matter in galaxies; community reaction to dark matter in 1975; continued belief in an open universe despite dark matter; history of N-body work on structure formation and correlation functions: influence of lecture by James Peebles, history of collaboration with Richard Gott and Sverre Aarseth; inability to measure omega by comparing N-body simulations with observations; reaction to inflationary universe model; reasons why the inflationary universe model has been so popular; Turner's reservations about the model; doing scientific projects because they can be done; introduction to and attitude toward the flatness problem; change in attitude after inflationary universe model; surprise at de Lapparent, Geller, and Huchra's results on large-scale inhomogeneities and its evidence for unknown processes: irrelevance of earlier work on correlation functions and lessening of Turner's expectations for what can be accomplished in cosmology; fear that cosmologists are heading in the wrong direction and underestimating the complexity of reality; use of imagery in science; interplay of theory and observation in cosmology and the divergence of the two; worry that we may have several untestable scenarios for the early universe; possible inability to reconstruct the history of the early universe; ideal design of the universe and desire for a rich and accessible universe; question of whether the universe has a point.