Sarah Zettel Quotes

So, one of the things I was doing with the aliens in The Quiet Invasion was creating that advanced society which had ideas about morality and proper use of natural resources that were radically different from ours, as the Europeans were from the American Indians.

First and foremost, The Quiet Invasion is a first contact story. What would we do if we actually found evidence of alien life out there? It's also about politics.

Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they've had forever. And they've been overrun by organized religion, which has had a lot of money and power.

My ancestors brought the cross to America and you have made a club of it.

When the white man came we had the land and they had the Bibles; now they have the land and we have the Bibles.

White men come in like a river. They told us that they only wanted a little land. But we knew better.

I see tech as... a force that is changing pretty much all parts of our society. It's really sad for me that we don't have enough women that are part of that.

If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans.

In this post-industrial society, when we're moving away from what was the norm, we have to deal with what it has left in its wake in terms of the impact on people and the environment.

I think [contacting an alien civilization] would be a disaster. The extraterrestrials would probably be far in advance of us. The history of advanced races meeting more primitive people on this planet is not very happy, and they were the same species. I think we should keep our heads low.

We are legislators, not public works contractors. People look up to us to make serious laws that could change the lives of a great number of people or could change the way society is run or managed.

Historically, science and society have gone separate ways, although society has provided the funds for science to grow, and in return, science has given society all the material things it enjoys.

You can't escape culture. You can learn about it. You can criticize it. You can try to move it slowly. But at the end of the day, you can't actually opt out of the culture that you're in.

'Star Trek' posited a better future.

I do suspect we are going to get signs of life elsewhere, but how well prepared are we for this? Have we thought how we will approach them? We need to start thinking about that.

Society is changing constantly, and changing faster than we think.

No one planet can tell us everything about the universe, but Neptune seems to hold more than its share of information about the formation of our own solar system - as well as the solar systems beyond.

Seriously, American pop culture must be the most predominant force on the planet, next to pollution and poverty.

The opening of space to human development and settlement is the most important activity of the human species. From hope to health, from wonder to wealth, the environment, and the very act of living, space is the future.

'Legality' is a mad phrase to use when it comes to the founding of nations. Australia was founded on illegality. For the Americans to go in and dispossess the American Indians was illegal.

It says something very deep about humans and our society, something very good about us, that we've invested our time and treasure in building a machine that can fly across three billion miles of space to explore the Pluto system.

I think pop culture has always influenced society.

I hope we don't export conflict from this planet into the others. None of the paradigms that define us here on earth - the borders, the parochialism, the divide, should mar our presence in space.

The South creates the civilizations, the North conquers them, ruins them, borrows from them, spreads them: this is one summary of history.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Or, as it's known to Native Americans - Sarcastic You're Welcomesgiving.