We feel certain that the extraterrestrial message is a mathematical code of some kind. Probably a number code. Mathematics is the one language we might conceivably have in common with other forms of intelligent life in the universe. As I understand it, there is no reality more independent of our perception and more true to itself than mathematical reality.

There's a moral force in a sentence when it comes out right. It speaks the writer's will to live.

Maybe when we die, the first thing we'll say is 'I know this feeling. I was here before'.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

Not long ago, a novelist could believe he could have an effect on our consciousness of terror. Today, the men who shape and inflence human consciousness are the terrorists.

Doesn't our knowledge of death make life more precious?' What good is a preciousness based on fear and anxiety? It's an anxious quivering thing

Hardship makes the world obscure.