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Five years earlier... [a]s my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the true wonder of this designated "dark sky site" revealed itself. ...The stars and planets weren't up there and I wasn't down here: it was all part of one enormous physical system called the Universe. I was a part of it too. ...I'd never really felt my place in it until that moment.

[A]s I studied more physics the question... at the core... was: "What is matter, and how does it interact to create everything around us—including ourselves?"

“It reduces all the revolutions, the struggles, the pain, the great dreams—everything—to nonsense! It means that life is pointless!”

“Not pointless,” Brazil put in suddenly. “It just means that the grand schemes are pointless. It means that you don’t make your own life pointless or useless—most people do, you know. It wouldn’t make any difference if ninety-nine percent of the people of the human race—or any other—lived or not. Except in sheer numbers their lives are dull, vegetative, and non-productive.”

Colonizing space with enormous rockets will almost certainly not be a lifeline for them. For if they haven't learned to live here, how can they possibly survive in the distant Beyond? (XV)

He was firmly convinced of his uniqueness in the universe and his general superiority to it, although he was occasionally bothered by the universe’s lack of appreciation.

Humans today think they can do whatever they like. They fancy themselves as masters, as architects of nature.

What one does is never enough. I don't want this challenge we're facing to defeat us. I want to do my bit, I want future generations to understand how hard we fought to stop the triumph of the unacceptable. (V)

“Well, he seems to be on our side,” Bat said optimistically.

“Nobody’s on any side but his own,” Brazil snapped back. “Not you, not me, not anybody.”

You can’t be a nonconformist if you don’t wear the proper uniform.

We, the trees. Our roots run all the way down to the heart of the earth, and we can feel the beat of her pulse. We inhale her breath. We taste her flesh. We live and die in the exact same spot, never moving from the land we occupy. Both prisoners and conquerors of time, we stand riveted to the ground yet soaring upward, reaching for the clouds. We adapt to all weathers, rain or shine, hurricanes or the dry harmattan winds. Our crowns merge with the sky's cotton-wool dreams. We are the link between Man and his past, his present, and his unpredictable future. (III)

He had often wondered if there was something deep in the human psyche that insisted on tribalism. People used to fight wars not so much to protect their own life-style but to impose it on others.

And, of course, men have just as many problems and hang-ups as women. The grass isn’t greener, just different.