"Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c'est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications."

"The first time I read The Little Prince? At the age of eight, it came with a strong endorsement from my mother...The illustrations seemed childish to me. To be honest, the narrative still feels infantile. Clearly, I didn’t get the allegorical nature of classics. The little prince wasn’t Everyman, a mythological hero in the middle of a journey. I needed to grow up to realize that the book was, well, more than just a book: it was a canvas on which readers could project themselves. That’s what classics are: more than just an accumulation of pages, they are the stuff our personal dreams are made of. I’ve now translated Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s volume into Spanglish, which to me is a way to say thank you."

"(What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?) My friend David Kibuuka gave me a copy of “The Little Prince,” which I love. It’s so simple and yet so complicated."

"Saint Exupery's The Little Prince continues to be my companion. I have a copy on my night table and I caress its pages and strange drawings and fall asleep peacefully with the knowledge that all that which is invisible can be seen with the heart."

"[...] la planète d'ou venait le petit prince est l'astéroïde B 612. Cet astéroïde n'a été aperçu qu'une fois au télescope, en 1909, par un astronome turc. Il avait fait alors une grande démonstration de sa découverte à un Congrès International d'Astronomie. Mais personne ne l'avait cru à cause de son costume. Les grandes personnes sont comme ça. Heureusement pour la réputation de l'astéroïde B 612, un dictateur turc imposa à son peuple, sous peine de mort, de s'habiller à l'européenne. L'astronome refit sa démonstration en 1920, dans un habit très élégant. Et cette fois-ci tout le monde fut de son avis."

"Si vous voulez vous la fabrication, doivent assumer les risques."

"I have never lied to you. I've had to hold back some things until I was free to speak, that's all."

"I’m not an imp faking human; I’m human. You don’t think anyone could get a job like this without human experience, do you? You have to be human right down to your toes to to please a fellow human most; that stuff about the superior erotic ability of succubi is just their advertising."

"Hell isn’t very organized. It’s an anarchy except for a touch of absolute monarchy on some points."

"“Mr. Ashmedai is city manager; Satan never does any work. Why should he? He owns this planet.” “This is a planet.” “You think maybe it’s a comet? Look out that window. Prettiest planet in this galaxy. And the best kept. No snakes. No cockroaches. No chiggers. No poison ivy. No tax collectors. No rats. No cancer. No preachers. Only two lawyers.” “You make it sound like Heaven.” “Never been there.”"

"I know this character. If he's a saint, I'm a pink monkey—"

"“With patience and plenty of saliva the elephant deflowered the mosquito.”"

"My first intimation that I was getting close to Hell was the stink. Rotten eggs. H2S. Hydrogen sulfide. The stench of burning brimstone."

"For modern man one of the most troubling aspects of eternity lies in getting used to the slippery quality of time. With no clocks and no calendars and lacking even the alternation of day and night, or the phases of the moon, or the pageant of seasons, duration becomes subjective and "What time is it?" is a matter of opinion, not of fact."

"I don’t know how long it took to reach the Throne. In Heaven the light doesn’t vary and the weather does not change and I had no watch. It was simply a boringly long time. Boring? Yes. A gorgeous palace constructed of precious stones is a wonderful sight to see. A dozen palaces constructed of jewels can be a dozen wonderful sights, each different from the other. But a hundred miles of such palaces will put you to sleep, and six hundred miles of the same is deadly dull. I begin to long for a used-car lot, or a dump, or (best yet) the stretch of green and open countryside."

"There were most questions, mostly silly, confirming an opinion I had kept to myself for years: Piety does not imply horse sense."

"I learned long ago, in dealing with legislators, that anyone who tries to keep you from having a witness is bad news."

"Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything. Oh, my church, too—but at least mine is honestly pantheistic. Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything—just give him time to rationalize it. Forgive me for being blunt."

"I can’t see proof in the dreams of long-dead prophets; you can read anything into them."

"Wisdom includes not getting angry unnecessarily. The Law ignores trifles and the wise man does, too."

"A miracle that takes place again and again and again is no longer a miracle; it’s just a nuisance."

"I am never one of those back-to-nature freaks who sneer at engineering; I have more reason than most people to respect engineering. Most people who sneer at technology would starve to death if the engineering infrastructure were removed."

"I have never been a Millenarianist. I am aware how often the number one thousand appears in the Bible, especially in prophecy — but I have never believed that the Almighty was constrained to work in even millennia — or any other numbering patterns — just to please numerologists."

"One does not persuade a butterfly to light on one’s hand by brandishing a sword."

"Did I believe her theory about Loki and Ragnarok? Of course not! Oh, I had no objection to calling Armageddon by the name "Ragnarok." Jesus or Joshua or Jesu; Mary or Miriam or Maryam or Maria, Jehovah or Yahweh—any verbal symbol will do as long as speaker and listener agree on meaning. But Loki? Ask me to believe that a mythical demigod of an ignorant, barbarian race has wrought changes in the whole universe? Now, really!"

"I am sorry...but I do believe that Loki is loose. The signs show it. Now anything can happen. We enter the Twilight of the Gods. Ragnarok comes. Our world ends."

"The Jehovah or Yahweh of the Old Testament seems to me to be a sadistic, bloodthirsty, genocidal villain."

"Jehovah destroyed city after city, every man, woman, and child, down to the youngest baby. Odin killed only in combat against opponents his own size. But, most important difference of all, Father Odin is not all powerful and does not claim to be all wise."

"Alec, do you believe in your heart that your God caused bears to tear up little children merely because they made fun of an old man's bald head?"

"The logical reconciliation of Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnibenevolence is the thorniest problem in theology, one causing even Jesuits to break their teeth."

"At Ragnarok the world as we know it will be destroyed. But that is not the end. After a long time, a time of healing, a new universe will be created, one better and cleaner and free from the evils of this world. It too will last for countless millennia...until again the forces of evil and cold contend against the forces of goodness and light...and again there is a time of rest, followed by a new creation and another chance for men. Nothing is ever finished, nothing is ever perfect, but over and over again the race of men gets another chance to do better than last time, ever and again without end."

"Margrethe said nothing—characteristically. If she disagreed, she usually said nothing. She seemed to have no interest in winning arguments, in which she must differ from 99 percent of the human race...many of whom appear willing to suffer any disaster rather than lose an argument."

"Let this be a lesson to you. Learn by my bad example. Never let an oaf cause you to lose your judgment."

"Some problems are best let be, not chewed over with words. This modern compulsion to “talk it out” is a mistake at least as often as it is a solution."

"“Paranoia is the only rational approach to a conspiracy world.” “But, Alec, the world ought not to be that way.” “There is no ‘ought’ to it, my love. The essence of philosophy is to accept the universe as it is, rather than try to force it into some preconceived shape.”"

"I knew that flying machines were impossible; in engineering school I had studied Professor Simon Newcomb's well-known mathematical proof that the efforts of Professor Langley and others to build an aerodyne capable of carrying a man were doomed, useless, because scale theory proved that no such contraption large enough to carry a man could carry a heat-energy plant large enough to lift it off the ground—much less a passenger. That was science's final word on a folly and it put a stop to wasting public monies on a will-o'-the-wisp. Research and development money went into airships, where it belonged, with enormous success. However, in the past few days I had gained a new angle on the idea of "impossible". When a veritable flying machine showed up in our sky, I was not greatly surprised."

"The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive."

"“Look, do you believe me?” She answered slowly and carefully, “I believe that you are telling the truth as you see it. But the truth I see is very different.”"

"Did something happen to me like that which Mr. Wells described in Men Like Gods? Did Mr. Wells have the holy gift of prophecy? For example, would men someday actually fly to the moon? Preposterous!"

"Never marry a woman who prays too much."

"Hypotheses:"

"My father used to tell me, "Alex, there is nothing wrong with being scared...as long as you don't let it affect you until the danger is over. Being hysterical is okay, too...afterwards and in private. Tears are not unmanly...in the bathroom with the door locked. The difference between a coward and a brave man is mostly a matter of timing.""

"I have what I want. I would not want to be a saint in Heaven if Margrethe was not with me; I wouldn't fear going to Hell if she was there — not that I believe in Hell or ever stood a chance of being a saint in Heaven. Samuel Clemens put it: "Where she was, there was Eden." Omar phrased it: "—thou beside me in the wilderness, ah wilderness were paradise enow." Browning termed it: Summum Bonum. All were asserting the same great truth, which is for me: Heaven is where Margrethe is."

"A man who is happy at home doesn’t lie awake nights worrying about the hereafter."

"Oy! Every prophecy I fulfilled! And now He tells me consistent I am not! This is justice?"

"For a creature to act out its own minor art, the rules under which it acts must be either known to it or be such that the rules can become known through trial and error — with error not always fatal. In short the creature must be able to learn and to benefit by its experience."