The search for extra-terrestrial life is a failure until that moment when it suddenly becomes a success.

[O]ne might ask why, in a galaxy of a few hundred billion stars, the aliens are so intent on coming to Earth at all. It would be as if every vertebrate in North America somehow felt drawn to a particular house in Peoria, Illinois. Are we really that interesting?

If you took all the sand from all the beaches, all the desserts, and all the oceans and called that the Universe, our whole solar system would be less than one grain of sand.

If this is the only planet on which not only life, but intelligent life, has arisen, that would be very unusual.

Despite the impression you may have from watching too much TV, movies are not about reproducing reality. Theyre about telling stories.

Like prospecting in the 19th century, reconnaissance of the asteroids would of necessity take place in an arena where trouble is likely and help is distant. Heroic stories of individual triumph and failure, set on landscapes never seen by humankind, are in the cards.

The search for extra-terrestrial life is a failure until that moment when it suddenly becomes a success.