The numbers of distinct human societies or nations, when our race is twice its present age, may be far greater than the total number of all the men who have ever lived up to the present time.

The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.

Death focuses the mind on the things that really matter: why are we here, and what should we do?

Much blood has also been spilled on the carpet in attempts to distinguish between science fiction and fantasy. I have suggested an operational definition: science fiction is something that COULD happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to. Fantasy is something that COULDN'T happen - though often you only wish that it could.

I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are coming. If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have set off the fire alarm and have nothing to do but to wait. I do not think we will have to wait for long.

I sometimes wonder how we spent leisure time before satellite television and Internet came along…and then I realise that I have spent more than half of my life in the ‘dark ages’!

It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.