"THERE ARE UNIVERSES BEGGING FOR GODS yet He hangs around this one looking for work."
"EXCRETION IS THE BITTER PART OF VALOR"
Also, in light of the recent Artemis mission, I found Farmer's original 1967 afterword as it appears in all editions of the Harlan Ellison edited Dangerous Visions at least moderately topical:
"I'm strangely indifferent about getting a man onto the moon. I say strangely since I've been reading science fiction since 1928 and selling science fiction stories since 1952. Moreover, I fully expected, and hoped and prayed, that we would be on Mars by 1940. About the time I was eighteen, I gave up this early date but still knew that someday, maybe 1970, we'd make it.
Also, I've been a military and commercial technical writer since 1957 and at present am working for a company which is intimately concerned with the Saturn and Apollo space programs. Ten years ago, I would have been close to ecstasy if I could have worked on a space project. Rockets, Moon landings, airlocks and all that.
But in the past eight years I've been increasingly interested in, and worried over, terrestrial problems. These are population explosion; birth control; the rape of Mother Nature; human, and animal, "rights"; international conflicts; and especially mental health. I'd like to see us explore space, but I don't think we have to. If the U.S. wants to spend its (my) money on space rockets, fine. I realize full well that space projects are more than going to pay their present expenses someday[...]
But let's spend at least an equal amount of money and research on trying to find out what makes people tick and mistick. If there has to be a choice between the different kinds of projects, get rid of the space project. People are more important than rockets; we'll never be in harmony with that Nature which exists outside our atmosphere; we're doing an inept enough job of getting into harmony with sublunary Nature."
-P.J. Farmer 1967
