If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

The line is widely attributed to Carl Sagan in connection with his popular science writing about the deep interdependence of everyday objects and cosmic history. It is most commonly traced to his book *Cosmos* (1980), where he uses the homely example of an apple pie to illustrate that even the simplest human-made things depend on an immense chain of prior causes—stellar nucleosynthesis for the elements, planetary formation, chemistry, biology, agriculture, and human culture. The phrasing often circulates as a standalone aphorism in educational contexts to emphasize scientific perspective and humility about what “from scratch” really entails.

The remark compresses a central Sagan theme: nothing is truly “from scratch” in isolation. Even a simple apple pie depends on the entire chain of cosmic and earthly processes—fundamental physics, the formation of elements in stars, planetary geology, atmospheric chemistry, biological evolution, agriculture, and human culture. By pushing the idea to the absurd extreme (“invent the universe”), Sagan highlights how scientific explanation expands outward from the familiar to the vast, revealing hidden dependencies. It is also a gentle critique of self-sufficiency myths: creation and craftsmanship always rest on inherited natural and social infrastructures.

1) “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
2) “To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
3) “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”