If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds. Sailors on a becalmed sea, we sense the stirring of a breeze.

Ask courageous questions. Do not be satisfied with superficial answers.

She had studied the universe all her life, but had overlooked its clearest message: For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

Writing a novel is like trying to solve a very long mathematical equation. Changing anything can change everything else.

The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.

The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.