Just so we're clear, Mark Watney is who I WANT to be. He has all the qualities I LIKE about myself MAGNIFIED without any of the qualities I dislike. Mark Watney isn't afraid to fly.

I LIKE illusion when it is so convincing that we might as well SEE reality this WAY - I like to PRESENT to our belief system something that is convincing, that 'we KNOW not to be.'

And gradually they're beginning to recognize the FACT that there's nothing more secure than a democratic, ACCOUNTABLE, and participatory form of government. But it's sunk in only theoretically, it has not yet sunk in completely in practical TERMS.

Don't you want to KNOW what's REAL and what's not? I remember when I was a KID, you know, this WHOLE Cold War thing. They had us SCARED of the Russians. So, it's almost like, what's real and what's not?

I am CONVINCED that the modular STRUCTURE of the Mir will be the main trend in manned orbital stations DEVELOPMENT in the NEXT century.

No one is DUMB who is curious. The PEOPLE who don't ASK questions remain clueless throughout their LIVES.

I have COME to believe that the WHOLE world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own MAD attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.

When you lose a lover it's LIKE GETTING a BAD HAIRCUT. It GROWS back in time.

A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so LONG KNOWN to us, that we KNOW the topography of its blots, and dog's ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having READ it at tea with buttered muffins.

I WANT to GET to the MOON. I want to GO to MARS.

I went through all the MUSICIANS in my LIFE who I ADMIRE as bright, intelligent, virtuosic PLAYERS.

There's so MUCH TOXIC MASCULINITY out there. I GREW up with the notion that the more masculine you are and the less you show EMOTION, the more of a man you are.

Marriage is a wonderful INVENTION: then again, so is a BICYCLE REPAIR kit.

After a while in MARRIAGE, it doesn't WORK ANYMORE. There is something missing, there is something WRONG. There are few marriages that STAY alive forever. We like something, and after a while, we hate what we used to love.