Some dangers are so spectacular and so much beyond normal experience that the mind refuses to accept them as real, and watches the approach of doom without any sense of apprehension. The man who looks at the onrushing tidal wave, the descending avalanche, or the spinning funnel of the tornado, yet makes no attempt to flee, is not necessarily paralyzed with fright or resigned to an unavoidable fate. He may simply be unable to believe that the message of his eyes concerns him personally. It is all happening to somebody else.

They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of omnipotence; their experiments did not always succeed.

The best proof that there's intelligent life in the universe is that it hasn't come here.

Before the current decade ends, fee-paying passengers will be experiencing suborbital flights aboard privately funded vehicles. . . . It won't be too long before bright young men and women set their eyes on careers in Earth orbit and say: "I want to work 200 kilometers from home-straight up!"

But he knew well enough that any man in the right circumstances could be dehumanised by panic.

When one has to ask, "Am I really in love?" the answer is always "No".

Good morning, doctors. I have taken the liberty of removing Windows 95 from my hard drive.