Then he [The Star Child] waited, marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.

Even if we never reach the stars by our own efforts, in the millions of years that lie ahead it is almost certain that the stars will come to us. Isolationism is neither a practical policy on the national or cosmic scale. And when the first contact with the outer universe is made, one would like to think that Mankind played an active and not merely a passive role-that we were the discoverers, not the discovered.

Judge me by my deeds, though they are few, rather than my words, though they are many.

Those wanderers must have looked on Earth, circling safely in the narrow zone between fire and ice, and must have guessed that it was the favourite of the Sun's children.

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.

Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.

Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.