Then I strip the pants away from each leg, like peeling a banana. That's it, the perfect metaphor: peeling a banana.

Great sci-fi has never shied from tackling the Big Questions, though really great sci-fi never forgets to entertain us along the way. Shock and awe applies to art, as well.

You are the nest. You are the hatchling. You are the chrysalis. You are the progeny. You are the rot that falls from stars. You may not understand what I mean. You will.

Why did they come billions of miles just to stare at us? It's rude.

But we fall only that we might rise, Alfred. All of us fall; all of us, as you say, screw up. Falling is not important. It is how we get up after the fall that's important.

But hope is no less realistic than despair. It is still our choice whether to live in light or lie down in darkness.

To hell with monsters and to hell with men. There is no difference to me.