β
If you're betrayed, release disappointment at once.
By that way, the bitterness has no time to take root.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
The Doctor: Doctor Song, you've got that face on again.
River: What face?
The Doctor: The "He's hot when he's clever" face.
River: This is my normal face.
The Doctor: Yes it is.
River: Oh, shut up.
The Doctor: Not a chance.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Betrayal is common for men with no conscience.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
A Kiss is a terrible name for a piece of chocolate shaped like a water droplet, because kisses are hot and would melt chocolateβeven if it is wearing an astronaut suit made out of tinfoil.
β
β
Jarod Kintz (At even one penny, this book would be overpriced. In fact, free is too expensive, because you'd still waste time by reading it.)
β
I need to ask myself, 'What would an Apollo astronaut do?' He'd drink three whiskey sours, drive his Corvette to the launchpad, then fly to the moon in a command module smaller than my Rover. Man those guys were cool.
β
β
Andy Weir (The Martian)
β
True love doesn't need proof.
The eyes told what heart felt.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
In this life, when you deny someone an apology,
you will remember it at time you beg forgiveness.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
She had tricked him. She had made him leave his old self behind and come into her world, and then before he was really at home in it but too late to go back, she had left him stranded there--like an astronaut wandering about on the moon. Alone.
β
β
Katherine Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia)
β
Amy: I never knew you drank wine.
Doctor: I'm 1103 I must have drunk it sometime in my life.
*takes sip and spits it out in disgust*
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Did you know that in space it's very, very cold? And there's no oxygen? And if an astronaut fell out of a shuttle without his suit he'd die right away?"
I'm a fast learner. "But that would never happen. Because astronauts are really, really careful."
George gives me a smile, the same dazzling sweet smile as his big brother, although at this point, with green teeth. "I might marry you," he allows. "Do you want a big family?
β
β
Huntley Fitzpatrick (My Life Next Door)
β
Twenty-two astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state
that makes people want to flee the Earth?"
- Stephen Colbert to Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones,
"The Colbert Report," November 3, 2005
β
β
Stephen Colbert
β
We were like astronauts floating through a starless universe.
β
β
Ransom Riggs (Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #1))
β
Astronauts are inherently insane. And really noble.
β
β
Andy Weir (The Martian)
β
You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, βLook at that, you son of a bitch.
β
β
Edgar D. Mitchell
β
I'm fully aware," Firth told a reporter for the English magazine Now, "that if I were to change professions tomorrow, become an astronaut and be the first man to land on Mars, the headlines in the newspapers would read: `Mr. Darcy Lands on Mars.
β
β
Colin Firth
β
Broken heart will turn into a stronger one within hope.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
If you're in bad mood, take a deep breath.
If you're in good mood, give thanks to God.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
There is a lie in between a promise and many excuses.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
β
β
Neil Armstrong
β
Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? β in ancient astronauts? β in the Bermuda triangle? β in life after death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.
β
β
Isaac Asimov
β
If there'd been an astronaut on the moon right then, I'm sure I could have seen him. Perhaps he could have looked down and seen me too... the only one who could.
β
β
Lucy Christopher (Stolen (Stolen, #1))
β
I love the way you refuse my love.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Whilst my mother couldn't give me access to the world, she at least made sure to let me know it existed.
A kid cannot dream of being an astronaut if he does not know about space.
β
β
Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood)
β
Heaven doesn't ignore cries of a broken heart.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
If you start thinking that only your biggest and shiniest moments count, you're setting yourself up to feel like a failure most of the time.
β
β
Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
β
Ancient astronauts didn't build the pyramids. Human beings built the pyramids, because they're clever and they work hard.
β
β
Gene Roddenberry
β
I wasnβt destined to be an astronaut. I had to turn myself into one.
β
β
Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
β
Early success is a terrible teacher. You're essentially being rewarded for a lack of preparation, so when you find yourself in a situation where you must prepare, you can't do it. You don't know how.
β
β
Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
β
Time felt slower when we do nothing but wait.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Amy: I had something I wanted to tell him. Stuff always gets in the way.
Canton: Stuff does that.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
A Russian astronaut and a Russian brain surgeon were once discussing religion. The brain surgeon was a Christian but the astronaut was not. The astronaut said, 'I've been out in space many times but I've never seen God or angels.' And the brain surgeon said, 'And I've operated on many clever brains but I've never seen a single thought.
β
β
Jostein Gaarder (Sophieβs World)
β
When we were five, they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Our answers were thing like astronaut, president, or in my case⦠princess.
When we were ten, they asked again and we answered - rock star, cowboy, or in my case, gold medalist. But now that we've grown up, they want a serious answer. Well, how 'bout this: who the hell knows?!
This isn't the time to make hard and fast decisions, its time to make mistakes. Take the wrong train and get stuck somewhere chill. Fall in love - a lot. Major in philosophy 'cause there's no way to make a career out of that. Change your mind. Then change it again, because nothing is permanent.
So make as many mistakes as you can. That way, someday, when they ask again what we want to be⦠we won't have to guess. We'll know.
[from the movie]
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse)
β
Jealousy is love in competition.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Then he asked if I didnβt like things changing. And I said I wouldnβt mind things changing if I became an astronaut, for example, which is one of the biggest changes you can imagine, apart from becoming a girl or dying.
β
β
Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time)
β
She came over and looked at the picture. Then she took my hand.
You know what that feels like?
Like what the astronauts will feel when they step onto the moon for the very first time.
β
β
Gary D. Schmidt (Okay for Now)
β
Eyes can only capture objects that already seen in mind.
And mind can only see things that already written in heart.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
You don't look fake when you unconsciously pretend.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination." (from "The Third and Final Continent")
β
β
Jhumpa Lahiri (Interpreter Of Maladies (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition))
β
When you are out of control,
someone is ready to take over.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Eyes shows lies.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
It's so funny you judge me arrogant after I succeeded.
You didn't help me at all when I was so poor and needy.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
All things are true. God's an Astronaut. Oz is Over the Rainbow, and Midian is where the monsters live." - Peloquin
β
β
Clive Barker
β
Hard to trust honesty of inconsistent person.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
I don't play with my life by talking bullshit.
I might have some chances in this bitchy life,
but I've got only one fuckin' chance to give...
my best shot.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
A few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age ... pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives. They don't want to be who they are any more. They want out. This list includes Thurston Howell the Third, Ann-Margret, the cat members of Rent, VΓ‘clav Havel, space shuttle astronauts and Snuffleupagus. It's universal.
β
β
Douglas Coupland (The Gum Thief)
β
I think the best time to stare off into space is when youβre going 65 on a motorcycle, provided youβre wearing your astronautβs helmet.
β
β
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
β
You can't start the change unless dare to be different.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
When you feel sadness inside,
wipe it away by cries and tears!
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
When we feel, a kind of lyric is sung in our heart.
When we think, a kind of music is played in our mind.
In harmony, both create a beautiful symphony of life.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Self righteousness belongs to narrow-minded.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
I wasn't lonely. Loneliness, I think, has very little to do with location. It's a state of mind. In the centre of every city are some of the loneliest people in the world. If anything, because our whole planet was just outside the window, I felt even more aware of and connected to the seven billion other people who call it home.
β
β
Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
β
We need arrogant people who like showing off.
They can cover us from bullets in the line of fire.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
When hatred judges, the verdict is just guilty.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
When walking alone in a jungle of true darkness,
there are three things that can show you the way:
instinct to survive, the knowledge of navigation,
creative imagination. Without them, you are lost.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
If you truly believe in something
that is totally rejected by others,
then you've just made a difference.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Understanding is not absolutely final.
What's now right could be wrong later.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
You praise man who has the ability to perform great actions.
I admire man who can deal with great pain and knows no despair.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Living close to the ground
Is seventh Heaven 'cause there are angels all around
Among my frivolous thoughts
I believe there are beautiful things seen by the astronauts
Wake me if you're out there.
β
β
Owl City
β
News told, rumors heard, truth implied, facts buried.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
The library was home away from home to my mom, and my family. We had spent every Sunday afternoon there since I was a little boy, wandering around the stacks, pulling out every book with a picture of a pirate ship, a knight, a soldier, or an astronaut. My mom used to say, "This is my church, Ethan. This is how we keep the Sabbath holy in our family.
β
β
Kami Garcia (Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles, #1))
β
Sweat the small stuff. Without letting anyone see you sweat.
β
β
Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
β
Waiting's exhausting.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Love without hope will not survive.
Love without faith changes nothing.
Love gives power to hope and faith.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Anticipating problems and figuring out how to solve them is actually the opposite of worrying: itβs productive.
β
β
Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
β
The dark dangerous forest is still there, my friends. Beyond the space of the astronauts and the astronomers, beyond the dark, tangled regions of Freudian and Jungian psychiatry, beyond the dubious psi-realms of Dr. Rhine, beyond the areas policed by the commissars and priests and motivations-research men, far, far beyond the mad, beat, half-hysterical laughter... the utterly unknown still is and the eerie and ghostly lurk, as much wrapped in mystery as ever.
β
β
Fritz Leiber
β
When you get lost in a really strange place,
nothing is more comforting than found your
friend whom you trust and can show the way.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Hope attracts chances.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Thirsty for attention is a cry of loneliness.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Earth is a small town with many neighborhoods in a very big universe.
β
β
Ron Garan (The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles)
β
Sinful heart blames.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
I looked and looked but I didn't see God.
[Speaking about, in 1961, becoming the first human to enter space.]
β
β
Yuri Gagarin
β
But where was God now, with heaven full of astronauts, and the Lord overthrown? I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it. I have an idea that one day it might be possible, I thought once it had become possible, and that glimpse has set me wandering, trying to find the balance between earth and sky. If the servants hadn't rushed in and parted us, I might have been disappointed, might have snatched off the white samite to find a bowl of soup.
As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me. There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name. Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed.
β
β
Jeanette Winterson (Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit)
β
In my experience, fear comes from not knowing what to expect and not feeling you have any control over whatβs about to happen. When you feel helpless, youβre far more afraid than you would be if you knew the facts.
β
β
Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
β
You can trust bad liars.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
If you hate difference, you'll be bored to death.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Observing and commenting, it is a piece of cake.
Experiencing and sharing, that is a piece of work.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Please, please don't try hurting me, my friends.
I wouldn't forgive myself If I had to kill you all.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
You are the fairy tale told by your ancestors.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
When you're young, you say what you feel.
When you're adult, you speak what you think.
When you grow old, you listen to what nature says.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Pride is the mother of arrogance.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
Great sex is a natural drug.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
If you believe in the idea of true friends,
then your heart is vulnerable to betrayal.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
In any new situation, whether it involves an elevator or a rocket ship, you will almost certainly be viewed in one of three ways. As a minus one: actively harmful, someone who creates problems. Or as a zero: your impact is neutral and doesn't tip the balance one way or the other. Or you'll be seen as a plus one: someone who actively adds value. Everyone wants to be a plus one, of course. But proclaiming your plus-oneness at the outset almost guarantees you'll be perceived as a minus one, regardless of the skills you bring to the table or how you actually perform.
β
β
Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
β
To me, itβs simple: if youβve got the time, use it to get ready. What else could you possibly have to do thatβs more important? Yes, maybe youβll learn how to do a few things youβll never wind up actually needing to do, but thatβs a much better problem to have than needing to do something and having no clue where to start.
β
β
Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
β
To dream the future is much more better than to regret the past.
But the best of all, to live in the present life with all of your power.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
When you feel life at crossroads,
you need higher perspective view.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
As I have discovered again and again, things are never as bad (or as good) as they seem at the time.
β
β
Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
β
Some arrogant feel very confident that they are the best.
That's pity. Much better men let them feel so for a reason.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
If to love each other is the job,
then the happy life is the salary.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
It's not a lie if you don't tell the truth.
But it's fucked up if you falsify the fact.
β
β
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
β
From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. Not light, exactly, but a glow that could be confused for light - a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes.
In about one and a half centuries - after the lovers who made the glow will have long since been laid permanently on their backs - the metropolitan cities will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Towns will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples invisible.
β
β
Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything Is Illuminated)
β
For Jenn
At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon
and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts.
I fought with my knuckles white as stars,
and left bruises the shape of Salem.
There are things we know by heart,
and things we don't.
At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke.
I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos,
but I could never make dying beautiful.
The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself
veins are kite strings you can only cut free.
I suppose I love this life,
in spite of my clenched fist.
I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree,
and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers,
and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath
the first time his fingers touched the keys
the same way a soldier holds his breath
the first time his finger clicks the trigger.
We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.
But my lungs remember
the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly
and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat.
And I knew life would tremble
like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek,
like a prayer on a dying man's lips,
like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zoneβ¦
just take me just take me
Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much,
the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood.
We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways,
but you still have to call it a birthday.
You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess
and hope she knows you can hit a baseball
further than any boy in the whole third grade
and I've been running for home
through the windpipe of a man who sings
while his hands playing washboard with a spoon
on a street corner in New Orleans
where every boarded up window is still painted with the words
We're Coming Back
like a promise to the ocean
that we will always keep moving towards the music,
the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain.
Beauty, catch me on your tongue.
Thunder, clap us open.
The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks.
Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert,
then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women
who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun.
I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun.
I know the heartbeat of his mother.
Don't cover your ears, Love.
Don't cover your ears, Life.
There is a boy writing poems in Central Park
and as he writes he moves
and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart,
and there are men playing chess in the December cold
who can't tell if the breath rising from the board
is their opponents or their own,
and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway
swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn,
and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun
with strip malls and traffic and vendors
and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it.
Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect.
I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon.
I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic.
But every ocean has a shoreline
and every shoreline has a tide
that is constantly returning
to wake the songbirds in our hands,
to wake the music in our bones,
to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river
that has to run through the center of our hearts
to find its way home.
β
β
Andrea Gibson
β
HELLO. Hello hello hello hello hello hello.
Hello?
Damn, now I've gone and done it. I've made hello go all abstract and weird. It looks like an alien rune now, something an astronaut would find engraved on a moon rock and go, A strange moon word! I must bring this back to Earth as a gift for my deaf son! And which would then--of course--hatch flying space piranhas and wipe out humanity in less than three days, SOMEHOW sparing the astronaut just so he could be in the final shot, weeping on his knees in the ruins of civilization and crying out to the heavens, It was just helloooooooo!
Oh. Huh. It's totally back to normal now. No more alien doom. Astronaut, I just kept you from destroying Earth,
YOU'RE WELCOME.
β
β
Laini Taylor (Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #2))
β
From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. Not light, exactly, but a glow that could be mistaken for light--a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes.
In about one and a half centuries--after the lovers who made the glow will have long been laid permanently on their backs--metropolises will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Shtetls will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples, invisible.
The glow is born from the sum of thousands of loves: newlyweds and teenagers who spark like lighters out of butane, pairs of men who burn fast and bright, pairs of women who illuminate for hours with soft multiple glows, orgies like rock and flint toys sold at festivals, couples trying unsuccessfully to have children who burn their frustrated image on the continent like the bloom a bright light leaves on the eye after you turn away from it.
Some nights, some places are a little brighter. It's difficult to stare at New York City on Valentine's Day, or Dublin on St. Patrick's. The old walled city of Jerusalem lights up like a candle on each of Chanukah's eight nights...We're here, the glow...will say in one and a half centuries. We're here, and we're alive.
β
β
Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated)
β
Competence means keeping your head in a crisis, sticking with a task even when it seems hopeless, and improvising good solutions to tough problems when every second counts. It encompasses ingenuity, determination and being prepared for anything.
Astronauts have these qualities not because weβre smarter than everyone else (though letβs face it, you do need a certain amount of intellectual horsepower to be able to fix a toilet). Itβs because we are taught to view the worldβand ourselvesβdifferently. My shorthand for it is βthinking like an astronaut.β But you donβt have to go to space to learn to do that.
Itβs mostly a matter of changing your perspective.
β
β
Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
β
I've been lucky enough now in my life to meet all sorts of extraordinary and accomplished people - world leaders, inventors, musicians, astronauts, athletes, professors, entrepreneurs, artists and writers, pioneering doctors and researchers. Some (though not enough) of them are women. Some (though not enough) are black or of color. Some were born poor or have lives that to many of us would appear to have been unfairly heaped with adversity, and yet still they seem to operate as if they've had every advantage in the world. What I've learned is this: All of them have had doubters. Some continue to have roaring, stadium-sized collection of critics and naysayers who will shout I told you so at every little misstep or mistake. The noise doesn't go away, but the most successful people I know have figured out how to live with it, to lean on the people who believe in them, and to push onward with their goals.
β
β
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
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On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the surface of the moon. In the months leading up to their expedition, the Apollo II astronauts trained in a remote moon-like desert in the western United States. The area is home to several Native American communities, and there is a story β or legend β describing an encounter between the astronauts and one of the locals. One day as they were training, the astronauts came across an old Native American. The man asked them what they were doing there. They replied that they were part of a research expedition that would shortly travel to explore the moon. When the old man heard that, he fell silent for a few moments, and then asked the astronauts if they could do him a favour. βWhat do you want?β they asked. βWell,β said the old man, βthe people of my tribe believe that holy spirits live on the moon. I was wondering if you could pass an important message to them from my people.β βWhatβs the message?β asked the astronauts. The man uttered something in his tribal language, and then asked the astronauts to repeat it again and again until they had memorised it correctly. βWhat does it mean?β asked the astronauts. βOh, I cannot tell you. Itβs a secret that only our tribe and the moon spirits are allowed to know.β When they returned to their base, the astronauts searched and searched until they found someone who could speak the tribal language, and asked him to translate the secret message. When they repeated what they had memorised, the translator started to laugh uproariously. When he calmed down, the astronauts asked him what it meant. The man explained that the sentence they had memorised so carefully said, βDonβt believe a single word these people are telling you. They have come to steal your lands.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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In space flight, βattitudeβ refers to orientation: which direction your vehicle is pointing relative to the Sun, Earth and other spacecraft. If you lose control of your attitude, two things happen: the vehicle starts to tumble and spin, disorienting everyone on board, and it also strays from its course, which, if youβre short on time or fuel, could mean the difference between life and death. In the Soyuz, for example, we use every cue from every available sourceβperiscope, multiple sensors, the horizonβto monitor our attitude constantly and adjust if necessary. We never want to lose attitude, since maintaining attitude is fundamental to success.
In my experience, something similar is true on Earth. Ultimately, I donβt determine whether I arrive at the desired professional destination. Too many variables are out of my control. Thereβs really just one thing I can control: my attitude during the journey, which is what keeps me feeling steady and stable, and what keeps me headed in the right direction. So I consciously monitor and correct, if necessary, because losing attitude would be far worse than not achieving my goal.
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Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
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ALONE
One of my new housemates, Stacy, wants to write a story about an astronaut. In his story the astronaut is wearing a suit that keeps him alive by recycling his fluids. In the story the astronaut is working on a space station when an accident takes place, and he is cast into space to orbit the earth, to spend the rest of his life circling the globe. Stacy says this story is how he imagines hell, a place where a person is completely alone, without others and without God. After Stacy told me about his story, I kept seeing it in my mind. I thought about it before I went to sleep at night. I imagined myself looking out my little bubble helmet at blue earth, reaching toward it, closing it between my puffy white space-suit fingers, wondering if my friends were still there. In my imagination I would call to them, yell for them, but the sound would only come back loud within my helmet. Through the years my hair would grow long in my helmet and gather around my forehead and fall across my eyes. Because of my helmet I would not be able to touch my face with my hands to move my hair out of my eyes, so my view of earth, slowly, over the first two years, would dim to only a thin light through a curtain of thatch and beard.
I would lay there in bed thinking about Stacy's story, putting myself out there in the black. And there came a time, in space, when I could not tell whether I was awake or asleep. All my thoughts mingled together because I had no people to remind me what was real and what was not real. I would punch myself in the side to feel pain, and this way I could be relatively sure I was not dreaming. Within ten years I was beginning to breathe heavy through my hair and my beard as they were pressing tough against my face and had begun to curl into my mouth and up my nose. In space, I forgot that I was human. I did not know whether I was a ghost or an apparition or a demon thing.
After I thought about Stacy's story, I lay there in bed and wanted to be touched, wanted to be talked to. I had the terrifying thought that something like that might happen to me. I thought it was just a terrible story, a painful and ugly story. Stacy had delivered as accurate a description of a hell as could be calculated. And what is sad, what is very sad, is that we are proud people, and because we have sensitive egos and so many of us live our lives in front of our televisions, not having to deal with real people who might hurt us or offend us, we float along on our couches like astronauts moving aimlessly through the Milky Way, hardly interacting with other human beings at all.
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Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (Paperback))
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Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.
Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we've never lost an astronaut in flight. We've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together.
For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, "Give me a challenge, and I'll meet it with joy." They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us.
We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and, perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.
And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's take-off. I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them.
I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program. And what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute.
We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue.
I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA, or who worked on this mission and tell them: "Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it."
There's a coincidence today. On this day three hundred and ninety years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, "He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it." Well, today, we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete.
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."
Thank you.
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Ronald Reagan