“What an
astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible
parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it
and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands
of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently
inside your head, directly to you." - Carl Sagan
Born in Brooklyn, NY, in November 1934, Sagan was an astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist and astrobiologist
who also wrote more than 600 articles and authored, co-authored or edited 20
books.
Sagan's award-winning and best-selling novel Contact was the basis for
a popular movie, and he also co-wrote, produced and narrated Cosmos, the most widely watched series in the history of American Public Television.
He died of pneumonia
at the young age of 61, but just before his death he spoke these wonderful
words about "the magic" of writing.
“Writing is perhaps the greatest of human
inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of
distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans
are capable of working magic."
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