Solaris

by Stanisław Lem

He was holding a plastic bulb of the kind used to drink out of on ships that lack artificial gravity.

This was highly original, except that it was still the case no one knew how a syrupy jelly could stabilize the orbit of a celestial body.

the dead remain young.

If I’m sleepy, I must be asleep, I thought to myself idiotically.

Human beings set out to encounter other worlds, other civilizations, without having fully gotten to know their own hidden recesses, their blind alleys, well shafts, dark barricaded doors.

it wasn’t possible reality should be entirely other than the myriad propositions hurled at it.

People of outstanding abilities and strength of character are born at more or less regular intervals,