They’ll be illiterates, many of them will be black, and they’ll all want to settle in Miami. “The great risk these people will pose is that they’ll i… - James A. Michener

It took her three seconds-one, two, three-to know that her destiny required her to join this man, and his gun and his wagon, and his waiting horses. She had no conception of what was being asked of her, but she knew that there could be no viable alternative. She dashed inside the orphanage and grabbed the few things that belonged to her.

For this is the journey that men make, to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much what else they find.

but about nine billion years ago a minor portion — staggering in size though only a fraction — began to coalesce into what would ultimately become the galaxy of which we are a part. In this galaxy some two hundred billion stars would form, the one we see rising each morning as our sun being one of the smaller. We must not take too much pride in our galaxy, wonderful as it is, because it is merely one of more than a billion; quite often the others are greater in dimension and larger in their starry populations.