“When the last living thingHas died on account of us,How poetical it would beIf Earth could say,In a voice floating upPerhapsFrom the floorOf the Grand Canyon,"It is done."People did not like it here.”

“No, she laughed." How on earth could that be done? If you try to laugh and say ‘No’ at the same time, it sounds like neighing — yet people are perpetually doing it in novels. If they did it in real life they would be locked up.”

“This is the last time, the girl thought, that she would remember these things. If they floated back to her again, she would paddle away. When the remembering was done, the forgetting could begin.”

“If flying-saucer creatures or angels or whatever were to come here in a hundred years, say, and find us gone like the dinosaurs, what might be a good message for humanity to leave for them, maybe carved in great big letters on a Grand Canyon wall? Here is this old poop's suggestion: WE PROBABLY COULD HAVE SAVED OURSELVES, BUT WERE TOO DAMNED LAZY TO TRY VERY HARD...”

“Like the Grand Canyon, I care deeply. Hop on a donkey and you’ll see how deeply I love you!”

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”