What famous quote is Carl Sagan known for: 'We are made of...'?

What famous quote is Carl Sagan known for: “We are made of…”? The answer is “star-stuff.”

The phrase comes from Sagan's 1980 book and television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. In discussing the origins of the chemical elements, he explained that stars manufacture many of the heavier elements through nuclear fusion and other stellar processes. When stars die and release material into space, that enriched matter can later become part of planets, living organisms, and people.

The statement is poetic, but it is also scientifically grounded. Hydrogen and helium dominated the early universe, while elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, calcium, and iron were formed in stars or in stellar explosions. Earth and its inhabitants therefore contain atoms that have passed through earlier generations of stars.

The quote is sometimes expanded as “We are made of star stuff,” while other versions say “The cosmos is within us.” The quiz answer “star-stuff” identifies the canonical phrase.