“We tried to make a beautiful world here, the voices mumble. There were those who saw the end of civilization as an opportunity to start over, to undo the errors of history -- to relive mankind's awkward adolescence with all the wisdom of our modern age. But everything was happening so fast.”

“Not as much as it bothers me that you just grabbed me without even trying to warn me first. If you’re trying to undo ages of prejudice, maybe you should start by acting civil.”

“If it happens that the human race doesn't make it, then the fact that we were here once will not be altered, that once upon a time we peopled this astonishing blue planet, and wondered intelligently at everything about it and the other things who lived here with us on it, and that we celebrated the beauty of it in music and art, architecture, literature, and dance, and that there were times when we approached something godlike in our abilities and aspirations. We emerged out of depthless mystery, and back into mystery we returned,and in the end the mystery is all there is.”

“Though experience should be our guide . . . and we see mistakes are common at the age of twenty-three, it must be acknowledged that not every youthful feeling begins unworthily and ends in error. If this were the case, mankind would have perished long ago.”

“Our civilization survives in the complacency of cowardly or malignant minds -- a sacrifice to the vanity of aging adolescents”

“We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.”