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I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

As a kid I'd lie awake at night and convince myself that a meteor was about to hit the Earth. It's my fatalistic streak, which I've inherited from my mum. I firmly believe something cataclysmic is going to happen in my lifetime and I have to be prepared to run for my life when the time comes.

This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

As the scene of life would be more the cold emptiness of space than the warm, dense atmosphere of planets, the advantage of containing no organic material at all, so as to be independent of both these conditions, would be increasingly felt.

As in an explosion, I would erupt with all the wonderful things I saw and understood in this world.

I'd love to be an astronaut. I bet you get a better understanding of our planet seeing it from a distance.

Drag me to the moon, to catch a star and seize its brilliance as I'm swept up in amorphous dust.

I just feel this is my planet.

Why I came here, I know not; where I shall go it is useless to inquire - in the midst of myriads of the living and the dead worlds, stars, systems, infinity, why should I be anxious about an atom?

The earth is a beautiful planet.