You can't have it both ways. You can't have both free will and a benevolent higher power who protects you from yourself.

Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral.

But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. The truth, as always, will be far stranger.

The dinosaurs disappeared because they could not adapt to their changing environment. We shall disappear if we cannot adapt to an environment that now contains spaceships, computers - and thermonuclear weapons.

I've been saying for a long time that I'm hoping to find intelligent life in Washington.

Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.

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.