What is alien?

Famous quotes containing the word alien:

    He who doesn’t know how to be a servant should never be allowed to be a master; the interests of public life are alien to anyone who is unable to enjoy others’ successes, and such a person should never be entrusted with public affairs.
    Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)

    Every one of my friends had a bad day somewhere in her history she wished she could forget but couldn’t. A very bad mother day changes you forever. Those were the hardest stories to tell. . . . “I could still see the red imprint of his little bum when I changed his diaper that night. I stared at my hand, as if they were alien parts of myself . . . as if they had betrayed me. From that day on, I never hit him again.”
    Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)

    Just kids! That’s about the craziest argument I’ve ever heard. Every criminal in the world was a kid once. What does it prove?
    —Theodore Simonson. Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.. Jim Bird, The Blob, responding to the suggestion that they not lock up the teens pulling the alien “prank,” (1958)