Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.

We are all creatures of the stars.

Africa gives you the knowledge that man is a small creature, among other creatures, in a large landscape.

Argument does not teach children or the immature. Only time and experience does that.

The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.

Why were the Europeans bothered about the Soviet Union at all? It was nothing to do with us. China had nothing to do with us. Why were we not building, without reference to the Soviet Union, a good society in our own countries? But no, we were all - in one way or another - obsessed with the bloody Soviet Union, which was a disaster. What people were supporting was failure. And continually justifying it.

For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying.