“If you still believe that aliens would travel hundreds of light years to carve temporary graffiti in our wheat, then your imagination is one of the seven wonders of the world, and should be bronzed.”

“Like prospecting in the 19th century, reconnaissance of the asteroids would of necessity take place in an arena where trouble is likely and help is distant. Heroic stories of individual triumph and...”

“If you could drive straight down, into a tunnel bored through the crust of the planet, you'd hit this molten mess in about an hour. It's called the asthenosphere - a sluggish sea, several hundred m...”

“Plate tectonics is not all havoc and destruction. The slow movement of continents and ocean floors recycles carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans back into the atmosphere. Without this slow speed ...”

“The stars look the same from night to night. Nebulae and galaxies are dully immutable, maintaining the same overall appearance for thousands or millions of years. Indeed, only the sun, moon and pla...”

“Each year, thousands of UFOs are sighted and reported, which is an impressive tally of unidentified aerial phenomena. Surveys show that roughly one-third of the populace believes that at least some...”

“I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet-to-come surprises.”

“Future warns us through current symptoms in nature.”

“Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose further developments, a future - and also because we live as if our only task was precisely to have relationships with ...”

“Witches are naturally nosy, said Miss Tick, standing up. Well, I must go. I hope we shall meet again. I will give you some free advice, though.Will it cost me anything?What? I just said it was free...”

“How can you be one of the stars of heaven, when the stars are innumerable? What star number do you have?”

“His words were full of hope and threat. Like the stars.”

“Of the two powers, the two categories that take possession of us when we enter the world, space is by far the less mysterious. . . . Space is, after all, solid, monolithic. . . . Time, on the other...”

“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary master...”

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space.”