Better a life like a falling star, brief bright across the dark, than the long, long waiting of the immortals, loveless and cheerlessly wise.

Anybody can find infinite Mandelbrot figures in his navel.

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.

We live with our archetypes, but can we live in them?

The single definition of government I've ever seen that makes sense is that it's the organization which claims the right to kill people who won't do what it wants.

A man isn't really alive till he has something bigger than himself and his own little happiness, for which he'd gladly die.

Timidity can be as dangerous as rashness.

A fanatic is a man who, when he's lost sight of his purpose, redoubles his effort.

He had seen too much of the cosmos to have any great faith in man's ability to understand it.

If we knew exactly what to expect throughout the Solar System, we would have no reason to explore it.

What five books would I like to be remembered for? Well... Tau Zero, I like that one especially. It was somewhat of a tour de force, and I think it got across what I was trying for.

Sit here, so I may writeyou into a poem and make you eternal.

The greatest American superstition is belief in facts.

I love the fact that I have a show where you can run over a kid and everyone busts out laughing.

As a first baseman, hitting home runs is what's expected of me. But I don't really try to hit home runs.

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.

The opening ceremony was good, although I missed it.

Vengeance is disappointing, always.

The only justification for ever looking down on somebody is to pick them up.

The new knowledge has not yet settled in culture. It has not yet been integrated in a new cosmic conception.

The applause and the favour of our fellow-men Fan even a spark of genius to a flame.