I'm surprised at some technological development, and the realization that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I think the CD-ROM is the best example of that. The idea of having a whole symphony, or opera, or novel in a little piece of plastic is pretty amazing.

The universe must be full of voices, calling from star to star in a myriad tongues. One day we shall join that cosmic conversation.

No communication technology has ever disappeared, but instead becomes increasingly less important as the technological horizon widens.

We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return...

There's a passage about 'rivers of molten rock that wound their way... until they cooled and lay like twisted dragon-shapes vomited from the tormented earth.' That's a perfect description: how did Tolkien know, a quarter century before anyone ever saw a picture of Io? Talk about Nature imitating Art.

Judge me by my deeds, though they are few, rather than my words, though they are many.

A hundred years ago, the electric telegraph made possible-indeed, inevitable-the United States of America. The communications satellite will make equally inevitable a United Nations of Earth; let us hope that the transition period will not be equally bloody.