By looking far out into space we are also looking far back into time, back toward the horizon of the universe, back toward the epoch of the Big Bang.

Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.

A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars - billions upon billions of stars. Every star may be a sun to someone.

There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any.

The Big Bang is our modern scientific creation myth. It comes from the same human need to solve the cosmological riddle [Where did the universe come from?]

One of the greatest gifts adults can give - to their offspring and to their society - is to read to children.

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.