Quotes & Sayings About Comets

Contrasts
The windows of my poetry are wide open on the boulevards and in the shop windows
Shine
The precious stones of light
Listen to the violins of the limousines and the xylophones of the linotypes
The sketcher washes with the hand-towel of the sky
All is color spots
And the hats of the women passing by are comets in the conflagration of the evening
Unity
There's no more unity
All the clocks now read midnight after being set back ten minutes
There's no more time.
There's no more money.
In the Chamber
They are spoiling the marvelous elements of raw material
("Contrasts") — Blaise Cendrars

A learned woman is thought to be a comet that bodes mischief whenever it appears. — Bathsua Makin

It may well be on such a night of clouds and cruel colors that there is brought forth upon the earth such a portent as a respectable poet. You say you are a poet of law; I say you are a contradiction in terms. I only wonder there were not comets and earthquakes on the night you appeared in this garden. — G.K. Chesterton

When Herschel saw Flamsteed's "star" drift against the background stars, he announced - operating under the unwitting assumption that planets were not on the list of things one might discover - that he had discovered a comet. Comets, after all, were known to move and to be discoverable. Herschel planned to call the newfound object Georgium Sidus ("Star of George"), after his benefactor, King George III of England. If the astronomical community had respected these wishes, the roster of our solar system would now include Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and George. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The moon's closeness is a huge advantage: To make it habitable, we would first have to bombard it with water-ice comets, a tricky endeavor best attempted with the many resources waiting on and near Earth. — Gregory Benford

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

You were always grossly obese,' observed Stephen. 'Were you to walk ten miles a day, and eat half what you do in fact devour, with no butcher's meat and no malt liquors, you would be able to play at the hand-ball like a Christian rather than a galvanized manatee, or dugong. Mr Goodridge, how do you so, sir? I hope I see you well.' This to Jack's opponent, a former shipmate, the master of HMS Polychrest and a fine navigator, but one whose calculations had unfortunately convinced him that phoenixes and comets were one and the same thing - that the appearance of a phoenix, reported in the chronicles, was in fact the return of one or another of the various comets whose periods were either known or conjectured. He resented disagreement, and although in ordinary matters he was the kindest, gentlest of men, he was now confined for maltreating a rear-admiral of the blue: he had not actually struck Sir James, but he had bitten his remonstrating finger. — Patrick O'Brian

For the way of the comets is the poet's way. — Marina Tsvetaeva

We are surrounded by a lot of failed ecosystems; the moon being one, Mars, Venus. There's evidence of water on Mars and rivers and it didn't take. Also, we have planets to guard us like Jupiter and Saturn that take the hits of the comets. It is miraculous that we exist on this planet, that it took. — Robin Williams

The motions of the comets are exceedingly regular, and they observe the same laws as the motions of the planets, but they differ from the motions of vortices in every particular and are often contrary to them. — Isaac Newton

Goodnight, moon. Goodnight, stars. Goodnight planets, comets and... Mars. Yes, even you, Mars. And not only for the sake of the rhyme. — Paul The Astronaut

Someday, Locke Lamora," he said, "someday, you're going to fuck up so magnificently, so ambitiously, so overwhelmingly that the sky will light up and the moons will spin and the gods themselves will shit comets with glee. And I just hope I'm still around to see it."
"Oh please," said Locke. "It'll never happen. — Scott Lynch

Time, tide, and comets waited for no man. — Neal Stephenson

No comets crashing, nothing you could really call a nuclear war. Just everything else, tangled in the changing climate: droughts, water shortages, crop failures, honeybees gone like they almost were now, collapse of other keystone species, every last alpha predator gone, antibiotics doing even less than they already did, diseases that were never quite the one big pandemic but big enough to be historic events in themselves. And all of it around people: how people were, how many of them there were, how they'd changed things just by being there. — William Gibson

Bayle, when writing on "Comets," discovered this; for having collected many things applicable to his work, as they stood quoted in some modern writers, when he came to compare them with their originals, he was surprised to find that they were nothing for his purpose! the originals conveyed a quite contrary sense to that of the pretended quoters, who often, from innocent blundering, and sometimes from purposed deception, had falsified their quotations. This is an useful story for second-hand authorities! — Isaac D'Israeli

There's always people looking the other way when the miracles take place, people who want only a good night's sleep when the stars are dancing, comets falling, the angels leaning low out of midnight with their trumpets, their cantatas of longing. — Paul Russell

For no one knows what lies under the sands of the world's great deserts. No one knows how many times poor Earth has reeled under blows from comets, has lost or captured moons, has changed its air, its very nature. No one knows what has existed and has vanished beyond recovery, evidence for the number of times man has understood and has forgotten again that his mind and flesh and life and movements are made of star stuff, sun stuff, planet stuff; that the sun's being is his, and what sort of events may be expected, because of the meshings of the planets - and how an intelligent husbanding of humanity's resources may be effected based on the most skilled and sensitive of forecasting, by those whose minds are instruments to record the celestial dance. — Doris Lessing

The result of the scientific work we have been considering was that the outlook of educated men was completely transformed. At the beginning of the century, Sir Thomas Browne took part in trials for witchcraft; at the end, such a thing would have been impossible. In Shakespeare's time, comets were still portents; after the publication of Newton's Principia in 1687, it was known that he and Halley had calculated the orbits of certain comets, and that they were as obedient as the planets to the law of gravitation. The reign of law had established its hold on men's imaginations, making such things as magic and sorcery incredible. In 1700 the mental outlook of educated men was completely modern; in 1600, except among a very few, it was still largely medieval. — Bertrand Russell

Out to sea, the calm lagoon waters were darkening, while the comets overhead glowed brighter, omens in the gloaming. — Julian May

Wonderful or supernatural events are not so uncommon, rather they are irregular in their incidence. Thus there may be not one marvel to speak of in a century, and then often enough comes a plentiful crop of them; monsters of all sorts swarm suddenly upon the earth, comets blaze in the sky, eclipses frighten nature, meteors fall in rain, while mermaids and sirens beguile, and sea serpents engulf every passing ship, and terrible cataclysms beset humanity. — David Garnett

Of all the planets, moons, asteroids, and comets in our Solar System, there is fire only on Earth - because there are large amounts of oxygen gas, O2, only on Earth. Fire was, much later, to have profound consequences for life and intelligence. One thing leads to another. — Carl Sagan

Human society is part of the general order, and the more our knowledge increases the less we are inclined to believe that the birth or death of princes, the rise or fall of millionaires, are matters that cause the sun to stand still or even produce the appearance of comets in the sky. — Arthur Alfred Lynch

Boldwood looked at her - not slily, critically, or understandingly, but blankly at gaze, in the way a reaper looks up at a passing train - as something foreign to his element, and but dimly understood. To Boldwood women had been remote phenomena rather than necessary complements - comets of such uncertain aspect, movement, and permanence, that whether their orbits were as geometrical, unchangeable, and as subject to laws as his own, or as absolutely erratic as they superficially appeared, he had not deemed it his duty to consider. He — Thomas Hardy

And here I sit with my stamps in a complete muddle, and nobody has bothered to tell me what it's all about."
"Listen now, Hemul," said Snufkin slowly and clearly. "It's about a comet that is going to collide with the earth tomorrow."
"Collide?" said the Hemulen. "Has that anything to do with stamp-collecting? — Tove Jansson

Authors can be divided into meteors, planets and fixed stars. The meteors produce a loud momentary effect; we look up, shout 'see there!' and then they are gone for ever. The planets and comets last for a much longer time ... The fixed stars alone are constant and unalterable; their position in the firmament is fixed; they have their own light and are at all times active, because they do not alter their appearance through a change in our standpoint, for they have no parallax. Unlike the others, they do not belong to one system (nation) alone, but to the world. But just because they are situated so high, their light usually requires many years before it becomes visible to the inhabitatns of earth. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Astrology furnishes a splendid proof of the contemptible subjectivity of men. It refers the course of celestial bodies to the miserable ego: it establishes a connection between the comets in heaven and squabbles and rascalities on earth. — Arthur Schopenhauer

His epitaph: Who, by vigor of mind almost divine, the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, and the tides of the seas first demonstrated. — Isaac Newton

So that, were it the purpose of God to produce comets as signs of his wrath it would be true to say that he is quickening a false devotion almost all over the world, increasing the number of pilgrims to Mecca, multiplying the offerings to the most famous impostors, inducing men to build mosques for Mohammedan worship, causing the invention of new superstitions among the dervishes - in a word, stimulating many abominable things which otherwise might not have been. — Pierre Bayle

The movement of comets is part of the ordinary works of nature which, without regard to the happiness or misery of mankind, are transported from one part of the heavens to another by virtue of the general laws of motion. — Pierre Bayle

What is there in places empty of matter? and Whence is it that the sun and planets gravitate toward one another without dense matter between them? Whence is it that Nature doth nothing in vain? and Whence arises all that order and beauty which we see in the world? To what end are comets? and Whence is it that planets move all one and the same way in orbs concentrick, while comets move all manner of ways in orbs very excentrick? and What hinders the fixed stars from falling upon one another? — Isaac Newton

There has always been the same amount of light in the world. The new and missing stars, the comets and eclipses, do not affect thegeneral illumination, for only our glasses appreciate them. — Henry David Thoreau

I wanted to feel the blood running back into my veins, even at the cost of annihilation. I wanted to shake the stone and light out of my system. I wanted the dark fecundity of nature, the deep well of the womb, silence, or else the lapping of the black waters of death. I wanted to be that night which the remorseless eye illuminated, a night diapered with stars and trailing comets. To be of night so frighteningly silent, so utterly incomprehensible and eloquent at the same time. Never more to speak or to listen or to think. — Henry Miller

I was born the 26th of December ... Arrive by dint of perseverance, but step by step ... Tenancy to exaggerate the importance of earthly life. Avaricious of self. Constant in their affections and their hatreds ... Yes, the Capricorn is a beast of solitude. Slow, steady, and persevering. Lives on several levels at once. Thinks in circles. Fascinated by death. Ever climbing, climbing. In search of the edelweiss, presumably. Or could it be immortelle? Knows no mother. Only "the mothers". Laughs little and usually on the wrong side of the face ... Speaks truthfully instead of kindly. Metaphysics, abstractions, electromagnetic displays. Dives to the depths. Sees stars, comets, and asteroids where others see only moles, warts, and pimples. Feeds on himself when tired of playing the man-eating shark. A paranoiac. An ambulatory paranoiac. But constant in his affections - and his hatreds. Ouais! — Henry Miller

We defied fate, who stepped in long ago and did everything in her power to keep us apart. Like two comets headed for a collision, our trajectory could not be stopped. We kept finding a way back. Every choice, every kiss, every subtle nudge was destined for our inevitable impact. Fate thought she was pulling us apart, when all along, she was setting the path for spectacular crash. An eruption, a nova, a big bang, a constellation - That's what we are. We are the thing of beauty created from catastrophe. We are the light burning bright, forged from an impossible collection of coincidences. — Nina G. Jones

The universe may forget us, but our light will brighten the darkness for eons after we've departed this world. The universe may forget us, but it can't forget us until we're gone, and we're still here, our futures still unwritten.

We can choose to sit on our asses and wait for the end, or we can live right now. We can march to the edge of the void and scream in defiance. Yell out for all to hear that we do matter. That we are still here, living our absurd, bullshit lives, and nothing can take that away from us. Not rogue comets, not black holes, not the heat death of the universe. We may not get to choose how we die, but we can choose how we live. — Shaun David Hutchinson

The abandoned stars were hers for the many rich hours os sparkling winter nights, and, unattended, she took them in like lovers. She felt that she looked out, not up, into the spacious universe, she knew the names of every bright star and all the constellations, and (although she could not see them) she was familiar with the vast billowing nebulae in which one filament of a wild and shaken mane carried in its trail a hundred million worlds. In a delirium of comets, suns, and pulsating stars, she let her eyes fill with the humming, crackling, hissing light of the galaxy's edge, a perpetual twilight, a gray dawn in one of heaven's many galleries. — Mark Helprin

One didn't issue instructions to comets. Grown children did what they had to do, and parents could only grit their teeth and watch and pray for them to get through it. — Lisa Alther

I remember for that one moment, I believe I was hitch hiking on one of those comets, falling so fast that I'd surely burn away before I ever hit the ground. — Jodi Picoult

Comets importing change of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars. — William Shakespeare

Reason can go only to a certain extent, beyond that it cannot reach. The circle within which it runs is very very limited indeed. Yet at the same time, we find facts rush into this circle. Like the coming of comets certain things come into this circle; it is certain they come from outside the limit, although our reason cannot go beyond. — Swami Vivekananda

And here is the truth from which all others grow; here is the spring from which all others flow: soon I will be dead. Soon, as measured by stardust and time. Soon as measured by comets and dreams. Soon. Soon. Soon, I will be dead. And here is the question that determines everything - what will I do until then?. — Steven James

Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretences to foretell events. — Jonathan Swift

It's ridiculous that our solar system, not to mention the universe outside of that, is extraordinarily well organized, to the point where we can predict 70 years away when a comet is coming. — Benjamin Carson

Comets develop their distinctive tails when their surface material begins to evaporate as they approach the Sun. — Bill Bryson

This has completely disturbed my peace," he complained. "A philosopher should be protected against the rude happenings of everyday life."
"Never mind," said Moominmamma, consolingly. "You'll soon feel better."
"But I do mind," said the Muskrat peevishly. "Never any peace ... " And he mumbled on. — Tove Jansson

I nee to reason for a plague, ... As far as I know no comets or eclipses have been forecast, and our sins are not great enough for God to be concerned with us. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Whether Earth was deliberately terraformed, in other words, or whether it was seeded with the spores of life from crashed comets or whether, indeed, life arose here spontaneously and accidentally, it is reasonable to hope that we might find traces of the same kind of process on Mars. — Graham Hancock

The neon signs which hang over our cities and outshine the natural light of the night with their own are comets presaging the natural disaster of society, its frozen death. — Theodor W. Adorno

All the other stars keep to their courses, and go along just like trains on their rails, but comets can go absolutely anywhere; they pop up here and there wherever you least expect them."
"Like me," said Snufkin, laughing. "They must be sky-tramps!"
Moomintroll looked disapprovingly at him. "It's nothing to laugh at," he said. "It would be a terrible thing if a comet hit the earth. — Tove Jansson

Ye country comets, that portend No war, nor prince's funeral, Shining unto no higher end Than to presage the grasses fall ... — Andrew Marvell

It is only the sudden and unpredictable appearance of comets that spoils the immutable celestial sphere. — John Pipkin

Cosmic systems intertwine, astral bodies drip like wine, all of nature ebbs and flows. Comets shoot across the sky, can't explain the reasons why, this is how creation goes. — Madonna Ciccone

But when we listened to the radio, it was Bill Haley and the Comets or the Everly Brothers. — Carly Simon

The language of solace, and comets, and the girls we all become, in the end. — Sarah Dessen

The Best of Elvis Presley, Doris Day, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Hailey and the Comets, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine all topped the charts in the '50s. Load a playlist of rock n' roll royalty. You're spoilt for choice. — Sara Sheridan

But when we face the great questions about gravitation Does it require time? Is it polar to the 'outside of the universe' or to anything? Has it any reference to electricity? or does it stand on the very foundation of matter-mass or inertia? then we feel the need of tests, whether they be comets or nebulae or laboratory experiments or bold questions as to the truth of received opinions. — James Clerk Maxwell

Every clear night is an opportunity to experience something amazing. I have seen comets stretch across the sky, viewed sunlight glinting off the dust that floats between the planets, and witnessed a Milky Way so bright that the glow of its billion stars cast a shadow at my feet. But in all my life I have never seen anything as awe inspiring, as awesome - in the original definition of the word - as a total eclipse of the Sun. — Tyler Nordgren

Maybe some people don't feel scared when they think about comets and supernovas. Maybe they think it is wonderful. — Lydia Netzer

I am shocked to find that some people think a 2 star 'I liked it' rating is a bad rating. What? I liked it. I LIKED it! That means I read the whole thing, to the last page, in spite of my life raining comets on me. It's a good book that survives the reading process with me. If a book is so-so, it ends up under the bed somewhere, or maybe under a stinky judo bag in the back of the van. So a 2 star from me means,yes, I liked the book, and I'd loan it to a friend and it went everywhere in my jacket pocket or purse until I finished it. A 3 star means that I've ignored friends to finish it and my sink is full of dirty dishes. A 4 star means I'm probably in trouble with my editor for missing a deadline because I was reading this book. But I want you to know ... I don't finish books I don't like. There's too many good ones out there waiting to be found. Robin Hobb, author — Robin Hobb

God has not forgotten you. He will as readily order about the forces of the universe on your account as He did on Noah's. His plans for Noah were also plans for the whole world through Noah. So they are for you. He will use you for the good of the whole world if you will let Him. SELECTED We may forget; God does not! God's time is never wrong, Never too fast nor too slow; The planets move to its steady pace As the centuries come and go. Stars rise and set by that time, The punctual comets come back With never a second's variance, From the round of their viewless track. Men space their years by the sun, And reckon their months by the moon, Which never arrive too late And never depart too soon. Let us set our clocks by God's, And order our lives by His ways, And nothing can come and nothing can go Too soon or too late in our day. ANNIE JOHNSON FLINT "There are no dates in His fine leisure. — Lettie B. Cowman

Damn the Solar System. Bad light; planets too distant; pestered with comets; feeble contrivance; could make a better myself. — Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey

Great men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds. — Charles Caleb Colton

Aristotle's opinion ... that comets were nothing else than sublunary vapors or airy meteors ... prevailed so far amongst the Greeks, that this sublimest part of astronomy lay altogether neglected; since none could think it worthwhile to observe, and to give an account of the wandering and uncertain paths of vapours floating in the Ether. — Edmond Halley

I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I knew such people, and they needed me, just like comets need tails. — John Green

Against filling the Heavens with fluid Mediums, unless they be exceeding rare, a great Objection arises from the regular and very lasting Motions of the Planets and Comets in all manner of Courses through the Heavens. — Isaac Newton

I'm sorry, he says. No two words were ever truer.
Still, she says nothing. Once a shield, now her taciturnity is brandished like a blade, carving away his sanity. She's the flaw in the paragon of life - the reason angels choose to dive to their downfalls in fiery comets of stardust. — Laura Kreitzer

Success is like Halley's comet, you know. Every now and then it just comes around. — Ross Perot

Without any doubt, the regularity which astronomy shows us in the movements of the comets takes place in all phenomena. The trajectory of a simple molecule of air or vapour is regulated in a manner as certain as that of the planetary orbits; the only difference between them is that which is contributed by our ignorance. Probability is relative in part to this ignorance, and in part to our knowledge. — Pierre-Simon Laplace

The only other place comparable to these marvelous nether regions, must surely be naked space itself, out far beyond atmosphere, between the stars, where sunlight has no grip upon the dust and rubbish of planetary air, where the blackness of space, the shining planets, comets, suns, and stars must really be closely akin to the world of life as it appears to the eyes of an awed human being, in the open ocean, one half mile down. — William Beebe

We affect one another quite enough merely by existing. Whenever the stars cross, or is it comets? fragments pass briefly from one orbit to another. On rare occasions there is total collision, but most often the two simply continue without incident, neither losing more than a particle to the other, in passing. — Gore Vidal

After 7 or 8 billion years of such enrichment, an undistinguished star (the Sun) was born in an undistinguished region (the Orion arm) of an undistinguished galaxy (the Milky Way) in an undistinguished part of the universe (the outskirts of the Virgo supercluster). The gas cloud from which the Sun formed contained a sufficient supply of heavy elements to spawn a few planets, thousands of asteroids, and billions of comets. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Now that Dad was gone I was starting to see how mortality was bound up in things like that cold, arc-lit sky. How the world is full of signs and wonders that come, and go, and if you are lucky you might see them. Once, twice. Perhaps never again. The albums on my mother's shelves are full of family photographs. But also other things. A starling with a crooked beak. A day of hoarfrost and smoke. A cherry tree thick with blossom. Thunderclouds, lightning strikes, comets and eclipses: celestial events terrifying in their blind distances but reassuring you, too, that the world is for ever, though you are only a blink in its course. — Helen Macdonald

Asteroids are craggy chunks of rock. Comets are balls of dirt, ice, and frozen gases. And meteors are, quite simply, whatever falls through and burns up in Earth's atmosphere from outer space. Asteroids — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Oh, how portentous is prosperity! How comet-like, it threatens while it shines. — Edward Young

Lad stood to attention anyhow, he said with a sigh. She's a gamey mare and no mistake. Bloom was pointing out all the stars and the comets in the heavens to Chris Callinan and the jarvey: the great bear and Hercules and the dragon, and the whole jingbang lot. But, by God, I was lost, so to speak, in the milky way. He knows them all, faith. At last she spotted a weeny weeshy one miles away. And what star is that, Poldy? says she. By God, she had Bloom cornered. That one, is it? says Chris Callinan, sure that's only what you might call a pinprick. — James Joyce

Oh, it's mysterious lamplit evenings, here in the galaxy, one after the other. It's one of those nights when I wander from window to window, looking for a sign. But I can't see. Terror and a beauty insoluble are a ribband of blue woven into the fringes of garments of things both great and small. No culture explains, no bivouac offers real haven or rest. But it could be that we are not seeing something. Galileo thought that comets were an optical illusion. This is fertile ground: since we are certain that they're not, we can look at what scientists are saying with fresh hope. What if there are really gleaming castellated cities hung upside-down over the desert sand? What limpid lakes and cool date palms have our caravans passed untried? Until, one by one, by the blindest of leaps, we light on the road to these places, we must stumble in darkness and hunger. — Annie Dillard

There is darkness on your lantern
and pumpkins in your wind.
and Oh, they clutter up your mind
with their senseless bumping
while your heart is like a sea gull
frozen into a long distance telephone
call.
I'd like to take the darkness
off your lantern and change the pumpkins
into sky fields of ordered comets
and disconnect the refrigerator telephone
that frightens your heart into standing
still. — Richard Brautigan

Then everything was normal again, except that the liner was speeding for the planet Krim at something more than thirty times the speed of light. Normality extended through all the galaxy so far inhabited by men. There were worlds on which there was peace, and worlds on which there was tumult. There were busy, zestful young worlds, and languid, weary old ones. From the Near Rim to the farthest of occupied systems, planets circled their suns, and men lived on them, and every man took himself seriously and did not quite believe that the universe had existed before he was born or would long survive his loss. Time passed. Comets let out vast streamers like bridal veils and swept toward and around their suns. Some of them - one in ten thousand, or twenty - were possibly seen by human eyes. The liner bearing Hoddan sped through the void. In time it made a landfall on the Planet Krim. — Murray Leinster

The Muskrat was still lying in his hammock and thinking.
"Good afternoon, Uncle Muskrat!" said Moomintroll. "Do you know that things have begun to happen?"
"Nothing new in any case," said the Muskrat.
"Oh, yes," said Moomintroll. "Completely new. There are people in the forest making secret signs everywhere
threats or warnings or something. When the silk-monkey and I came home a little while ago, somebody had arranged mamma's jam pears in a pattern that looked like a star with a tail. — Tove Jansson

I love to revel in philosophical matters-especially astronomy. I study astronomy more than any other foolishness there is. I am a perfect slave to it. I am at it all the time. I have got more smoked glass than clothes. I am as familiar with the stars as the comets are. I know all the facts and figures and have all the knowledge there is concerning them. I yelp astronomy like a sun-dog, and paw the constellations like Ursa Major. — Mark Twain

I agree that we should go back to the moon and on to Mars. We should treat all objects in the solar system, including comets and asteroids, as exploration targets. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Chasing after words like trying to grab the tails of comets. — Libba Bray

If parents are the fixed stars in the child's universe, the vaguely understood, distant but constant celestial spheres, siblings are the dazzling, sometimes scorching comets whizzing nearby. — Alison Gopnik

He created waterfalls for her out of the morning dew, and from the colored pebbles of a meadow stream he made a necklace more beautiful than emeralds, sadder than pearls. She caught him in her net of silken hair, she carried him down, down, into deep and silent waters, past obliteration. He showed her frozen stars and molten sun; she gave him long, entwined shadows and the sound of black velvet. He reached out to her and touched moss, grass, ancient trees, iridescent rocks; her fingertips, striving upwards, brushed old planets and silver moonlight, the flash of comets and the cry of dissolving suns. — Robert Sheckley

Life is like a comet that briefly crosses the night sky without almost being noticed — Bangambiki Habyarimana

I am not quite sure how writing changes things, but I know that it does. It is indirect-like the trails of earthworms aerating the earth. It is not always deliberate-like the tails of glowing dust dragged by comets. — Erica Jong

There are certain events which to each man's life are as comets to the earth, seemingly strange and erratic portents; distinct from the ordinary lights which guide our course and mark our seasons, yet true to their own laws, potent in their own influences. — Bill Vaughan

The star we're looking for isn't so very friendly," said Moomintroll. "Quite the contrary, in fact."
"What did you say?" said Sniff.
Moomintroll went a bit red. "I mean
stars in general," he said, "big and small, friendly and unfriendly, and so on."
"Can they be unfriendly?" asked Snufkin.
"Yes
ones with tails," answered Moomintroll. "Comets."
At last it dawned on Sniff. "You're hiding something from me!" he said accusingly. "That pattern we saw everywhere, and you said it didn't mean anything!"
"You're too small to be told everything," answered Moomintroll.
"Too small!" screamed Sniff. "I must say it's a fine thing to take me on an expedition of discovery and not tell me what I'm supposed to be discovering! — Tove Jansson

Run across a field of daisies at warp speed but keep your eyes on the ground. It's ace. Pedaled stars and dandelion comets streak the green universe. — David Mitchell

Amorphous forms [of ice], for example, are found naturally on comets, on asteroids, and the crystalline forms are found on Earth or at least could be made on Earth with enough pressure. Nothing else does this. — Ira Flatow

Astrology provides a brilliant proof of the miserable subjectivity of human beings, as a result of which they relate everything to themselves and go from every thought in a straight line immediately back to themselves. It relates the course of the great celestial bodies to the pathetic I, as it also connects the comets in the sky with earthly quarrels and shabby tricks. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Confusion has seized us, and all things go wrong,
The women have leaped from their spheres,
And, instead of fixed stars, shoot as comets along,
And are setting the world by the ears! — Maria Weston Chapman

A professor can never better distinguish himself in his work than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discovers are among them, as comets amongst the stars. — Carl Linnaeus

We want an ensemble of stars, not comets. — Rudolf Bing

It wasn't to be endured! For half an hour, the Captain shot off salvo after salvo of the very worst sort of profanity. He started with the sun and ran down the list of planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, to the very meteors themselves. He was starting on the nearer fixed stars, when he collapsed from sheer nervous exhaustion. He was so excited that he never thought to ask us what we were doing in the storeroom in the first place, and for that Whitefield and I were duly grateful.
But Captain Bartlett is no fool. Having purged his system of its nervous tension, he saw clearly that that which cannot be cured must be endured. — Isaac Asimov

Now it must be asked if we can comprehend why comets signify the death of magnates and coming wars, for writers of philosophy say so. The reason is not apparent, since vapor no more rises in a land where a pauper lives than where a rich man resides, whether he be king or someone else. Furthermore, it is evident that a comet has a natural cause not dependent on anything else; so it seems that it has no relation to someone's death or to war. For if it be said that it does relate to war or someone's death, either it does so as a cause or effect or sign.
De Cometis — Albertus Magnus

I've been looking for a long, long time,
for this thing called love,
I've ridden comets across the sky,
and I've looked below and above.
Then one day I looked inside myself,
and this is what I found,
A golden sun residing there,
beaming forth God's light and sound. — Rumi

When beggars die there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Oh, dear me!" he lamented. "The raft has floated off and I suppose it's gone down that awful hole by now."
"Well, never mind. We're not on it," said Snufkin gaily. "What's a kettle here or there when you're out looking for a comet! — Tove Jansson

Madam: If you discover any more comets, can you not wait until they are announced by the proper authorities? — George Phillips Bond