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

We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

We are star stuff harvesting sunlight.

Nevertheless, (Jefferson) believed that the habit of skepticism is an essential prerequisite for responsible citizenship. He argued that the cost of education is trivial compared to the cost of ignorance, of leaving government to the wolves. He taught that the country is safe only when the people rule.

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses.

Has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? . . . No other human institution comes close.