“It is good to renew one's wonder, said the philosopher. Space travel has again made children of us all.”

“You mean old books?""Stories written before space travel but about space travel.""How could there have been stories about space travel before --""The writers," Pris said, "made it up.”

“Even today, some opt for the comforts of mystification, preferring to believe that the wonders of the ancient world were built by Atlanteans, gods, or space travelers, instead of by thousands toiling in the sun. Such thinking robs our forerunners of their due, and us of their experience. Because then one can believe whatever one likes about the past - without having to confront the bones, potsherds, and inscriptions which tell us that people all over the world, time and again, have made similar advances and mistakes.”

“As Aristotle said, 'Excellence is a habit.' I would say furthermore that excellence is made constant through the feeling that comes right after one has completed a work which he himself finds undeniably awe-inspiring. He only wants to relax until he's ready to renew such a feeling all over again because to him, all else has become absolutely trivial.”

“I wonder if it won't be the same with the children as it has been with us. No matter how long each one of them lives, won't their lives feel to them unfinished like ours, only just beginning? I wonder how far they will go. And then their children will grow up and it will be the same with them. Unfinished lives. Oh, dearie, what children all of us are.”

“I said, "The children wanted to know what life was like."Junior said, “They [the children] don’t have any idea how rough it was.” (George responds)“Or how good it was either! People forget that a picture ain’t made from just one color. Life ain’t all good or all bad. It’s full of everything.”