“When you're on Earth, if you go to the top of a mountain, the stars look much brighter than they do at sea level. And because the space shuttle is above Earth's atmosphere, it's like being on a very, very high mountain. So they look brighter, but not bigger.”

“Lift thyself up, look. around, and see something higher and brighter than earth, earthworms, and earthly darkness.”

“I remember a few years ago I was watching this astronaut from the space shuttle, talking about his experiences in space and talking about what earth looked like to him from above.”

“Do you know that these mountains you're looking at don't really exist at all? Or can't you see that they belong more to the sky than the earth? All this enchanting blueness which enthralls you is an illusion.”

“Because the moment you stop doing the very things that got you to the top of the mountain is the very moment you begin the slid down to the valley.”

“But high up on the mountain
When the wind is hitting it
If you're watching very closely
The rock slips a little bit…”

“The view of Earth is spectacular. The shuttle is pretty close to Earth. It only flies between 200 and 350 miles above Earth. So it's really pretty close. So we don't see the whole planet, like the astronauts who went to the moon did. So we can see much more detail. We can see cities during the day and at night, and we can watch rivers dump sediment into the ocean, and see hurricanes form. It's just a lot of fun and very interesting to look out the window.”

“Charlemagne lived away back in the Dark Ages when people were not very bright. They have been getting brighter and brighter ever since, until finally they are like they are now.”

“This is a terror of a space, probably much more difficult than the Turbine Hall. It's three times the size, huge horizontally and vertically and above all the light is a killer. It's almost brighter than it is outside.”

“The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun.”