Quote #3 (and a subquote…)

“I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.”*

— Stanislaw Lem, Solaris

*I recently came upon the following sentence in Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers: “The aliens are holed up in the Zones and are carefully studying us, simultaneously preparing us for the ‘time of cruel miracles.'” Amazing and delightful that the Strugatskys were as struck by Lem’s line as I was, and that it survived in translation so that readers of Lem in English could recognize it.