Every breath you take contains atoms forged in the blistering furnaces deep inside stars. Every flower you pick contains atoms blasted into space by stellar explosions that blazed brighter than a billion suns. Every book you read contains atoms blown across unimaginable gulfs of space and time by the wind between the stars.

The Magic Furnace: The Search For The Origin Of Atoms, Prologue (p. 1), Oxford University Press. 2001