The brevity of a human lifespan tormented them as never before, and their hearts soared above the vault of time to join with their descendants and pl… - Liu Cixin

First I’ll tell you about the picture of the universe painted by modern physics: the geometry of the universe is not physical.” “Can you be a little less abstract?” “What if I put it this way: in the universe, apart from empty space, there is nothing.

A professor of philosophy once said that lesson one for freshman in his field should consist of a long, hard look late at night at the stars. I think this would be an even more apt first lesson for aspiring writers of sci-fi.

But when they gaze up at the stars, they turn sentimental and believe that if extraterrestrial intelligences exist, they must be civilizations bound by universal, noble, moral constraints, as if cherishing and loving different forms of life are parts of a self-evident universal code of conduct.