Zoe

“Mary had a little lamb
Its fleece was white as snow...”
― Sarah Josepha Buell Hale

“That perfected machines may one day succeed us is, I remember, an extremely commonplace notion on Earth. It prevails not only among poets and romantics but in all classes of society. Perhaps it is because it is so widespread, born spontaneously in popular imagination, that it irritates scientific minds. Perhaps it is also for this very reason that it contains a germ of truth. Only a germ: Machines will always be machines; the most perfected robot, always a robot. But what of living creatures possessing a certain degree of intelligence, like apes? And apes, precisely, are endowed with a keen sense of imitation.…”
― Pierre Boulle, Planet of the Apes

“The idea came to me complete from start to finish – a most unusual occurrence, as any writer will tell you, for ordinarily a story has to be struggled with, changed around and mixed up.”
― Philip Van Doren Stern

“It is never until one realizes that one means something to others that one feels there is any point or purpose in one’s own existence.”
― Stefan Zweig, Beware of Pity