“He wrested the world's whereabouts from the stars, and locked the secret in a pocket watch.”

“Any clock that can track this sideral schedule proves itself as perfect as God's magnificent clockwork.Dava Sobel”

“[John] Harrison [could not] express himself clearly in writing.... No matter how brilliantly ideas formed in his mind, or crystallized in his clockworks, his verbal descriptions failed to shine with the same light.... The first sentence [of his last published work] runs on, virtually unpunctuated, for twenty-five pages." Dava Sobel, Longitude, p66”

“Give children a chance to love the earth before we ask them to save it.”

“During the glory days of the Apollo project, a young astronomer who analyzed Moon rocks at a university laboratory fell in love with my friend Carolyn, and risked his job and the national security to give her a quantum of moon dust. “Where is it? Let me see!” I demanded at this news. But she answered quietly, “I ate it.” After a pause she added, “There was so little.” As though that explained everything.”

“How'd you get in here?"She raised her eyebrows. “You pick pockets.” Kat watched his hand fly to his back pocket. “I can pick locks. Looking for this?” she asked, holding up his wallet. “Oops. Maybe I can pick pockets too.”

“...a resistless, inanimate world of nature to be used and refashioned at will by man in his magnificent and courageous folly to wrest a purpose from eternity.”