"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." – Vladimir Nabokov

"None of us can ever give the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows, for language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity." – Gustave Flaubert

"The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we've learned most of what we know. Recently, we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return, and we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." – Carl Sagan