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

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I am an optimist. Anyone interested in the future has to be otherwise he would simply shoot himself.

There is the possibility that humankind can outgrow its infantile tendencies, as I suggested in 'Childhood's End.' But it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are.

The piece of equipment I'm most found off is my telescope. The other night I had a superb view of the moon.

Deep beneath the surface of the Sun, enormous forces were gathering. At any moment, the energies of a million hydrogen bombs might burst forth in the awesome explosion.... Climbing at millions of miles per hour, an invisible fireball many times the size of Earth would leap from the Sun and head out across space.