We came into a homeless frontier, a place where we were not welcome, where nothing that lived was welcome, where thought and logic were abhorrent and we were frightened, but we went into this place because the universe lay before us, and if we were to know ourselves, we must know the universe

There is a plan, it seems to me, that reaches out of the electron to the rim of the universe and what this plan may be or how it came about is beyond my feeble intellect. But if we are looking for something on which to pin our faith- and, indeed, our hope- the plan might well be it. I think we have thought too small and have been too afraid.

Once there had been joy, but now there was only sadness, and it was not, he knew, alone the sadness of an empty house; it was the sadness of all else, the sadness of the Earth, the sadness of the failures and the empty triumphs.

The chain of life runs smoothly from one generation to the next and none of the links stand out except here and there a link one sees by accident.

Must faith be exactly that, the willingness and ability to believe in the face of a lack of evidence? If one could find the evidence, would then the faith be dead?

My reluctance to use alien invasion is due to the feeling that we are not likely to be invaded and taken over.

If the means were available, we could trace our ancestry - yours and mine - back to the first blob of life-like material that came into being on the planet.