Alexander Shmid

“Read you,’ replied Dallas. Thinking of mine shafts, he asked, ‘Any change in your surroundings? Still the same stuff walling the shaft?’ ‘Far as I can see. How am I doing on line?’ A brief pause while Dallas checked the cable remaining on the spool. ‘Fine. Got over fifty metres left. If the shaft runs deeper than that we’ll have to call this off until we can bring bigger stuff from the ship. I wouldn’t think it’d go that far down, though.’ ‘What makes you think so?’ Dallas sounded thoughtful. ‘Would make the ship all out of proportion.’ ‘Proportion to what? And to whose ideas of proportion?’ Dallas did not have a reply for that.”
― Alan Dean Foster, Alien

“That’s not what’s bothering you, is it? You’re worried about what they might find. Or have we all misjudged you and you’re really a high-minded seeker after knowledge, a true devotee of pushing back the frontiers of the known universe?’ ‘Hell, no.’ Parker didn’t seem the least offended by Ripley’s casual sarcasm. ‘I’m a true devotee of pushing back the frontiers of my bank account.”
― Alan Dean Foster, Alien

“Rule makers always draw up their precious rules and regulations in safety and comfort, not out in the field, where those same absolutes are supposed to be applied. At those times we have to rely on our own minds and feelings.”
― Alan Dean Foster, Alien

“Curiosity, after all, was what had driven mankind out from his isolated, unimportant world and across the gulf between the stars. It had also, he thoughtfully reminded himself, killed the figurative cat.”
― Alan Dean Foster, Alien