I also balked at that statement. Of course the point of science isn't the "quest". Sure, for an individual scientist, the pursuit of knowledge may be enjoyable- and I hope it is.

But the "point" of science is to cure the disease, understand how the plants grow, understand how atoms behave, how chemicals react, etc, etc.

The author was clearly going for some kind of romantic, quotable, end thought, but I think it's clear he's no Hawking when it comes to that.