"There are not many of them, all things considered: the truly old. Even on this planet, in this age, when people consider a mere hundred years or a thousand, to be an unusual span.
There are, for example, less than ten thousand humanoid individuals alive on this planet today who have personal memories of the saber-toothed tiger, the megatherium, the cave bear.
There are today less than a thousand who walked the streets of Atlantis.
There are less than five hundred living humans who remember the human civilizations that predated the great lizards.
There are roughly seventy people walking the earth, human to all appearances (and in a few cases, to all medical tests currently available), who were alive before the earth had begun to congeal from gas and dust.
How well do you know your neighbors? Your friends? Your lovers? Walk the streets of any city, and stare carefully at the people who pass you, and wonder and know this:
They are there too. The old ones." -- Neil Gaiman, "Sandman: Brief Lives"
^ This is true.
"Don't try to out-weird me, three eyes. I get weirder things than you in my breakfast cereal." - Zaphod Beeblebrox, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
"God does not play dice with the universe: He plays an ineffable game of His own devising which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players (*i.e., everybody), to being involving in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules and who smiles all the time." --Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet
Mary Ann Cramer: "Is it worth it? Should we just pull back? Forget the whole thing as a bad idea, and take care of our own problems, at home."
Sinclair: "No. We have to stay here. And there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes…[and] all of this…all of this…was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars." -- Babylon 5, "Infection"
Sebastian: "How do you know the Chosen Ones? "No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother." Not for millions…not for glory…not for fame. For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see." -- Babylon 5, "Comes the Inquisitioner"
G'Kar: "It was the end of the Earth year 2260, and the war had paused, suddenly and unexpectedly. All around us, it was as if the universe were holding its breath…waiting. All of life can be broken down into moments of transition, or moments…of revelation. This had the feeling of both. […] G'Quan wrote, "There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope. The death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender." The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born…in pain." -- Babylon 5, Z'ha'dum
Susan Ivanova: "This is the White Star fleet. Negative on the surrender. We will not stand down."
Captain Thomson, Earthforce: "Who is this? Identify yourself!"
Ivanova: "Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova. Commander. Daughter of Andrei and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance, and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart! I am Death Incarnate, and the last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent me."
Captain Sisko: So... I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning thing of all... I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again - I would. "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - "In the Pale Moonlight"
