'Capable of working magic'

 “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

Sagan, born in Brooklyn, NY on Nov. 9, 1934 was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist and astrobiologist who also wrote more than 600 articles and authored, co-authored or edited 20 books.  His novel Contact was the basis for a popular movie, and he co-wrote and narrated Cosmos, the most widely watched series in the history of American public television.   

 

Sagan died of pneumonia at the relatively young age of 61, but just before his death he spoke the wonderful words above about books and writing.

 

 

“Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions," Sagan said, "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."