Across the gulf of centuries, the blind smile of Homer is turned upon our age. Along the echoing corridors of time, the roar of the rockets merges now with the creak of the wind-taut rigging. For somewhere in the world today, still unconscious of his destiny, walks the boy who will be the first Odysseus of the Age of Space.

It must be wonderful to be seventeen, and to know everything.

That's one of those meaningless and unanswerable questions the mind keeps returning to endlessly, like the tongue exploring a broken tooth.

And because, in all the Galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped. And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.

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

I'm quite fond of the writer who told a beginning author, "If you've got a message, use Western Union."

Perhaps no other year before or since 1984 has been awaited with such eager anticipation.