Quotes from Arthur C. Clarke

he filled to perfection the classic recipe for a small boy: "a noise surrounded by dirt.

Someone had once said that you could be terrified in space, but you could not be worried there.

Evolution and science had come to the same answers; and the work of Nature had lasted longer. At

The long-heralded global village is almost upon us, but it will last for only a flickering moment in the history of mankind. Before we even realise that it has come, it will be superseded – by the global family.

And then there came a sound which Moon-Watcher could not possibly have identified, for it had never been heard before in the history of the world. It was the clank of metal upon stone.

The future is built on the rubbish of the past; wisdom lies in facing that fact, not in fighting against it.

There are some women who appear sincerely unaware of the fact that they cannot stop talking, and are most surprised when anyone accuses them of monopolising the conversation.

Critics who suggested that these ideas were too fantastic to be taken seriously were reminded of Niels Bohr's 'Your theory is crazy - but not crazy enough to be true.' If

He was still prepared to go on collecting all that life could offer, like a chambered nautilus patiently adding new cells to its slowly expanding spiral.

He had no wish to face whatever lurked in the unknown darkness, just beyond the little circle of light cast by the lamp of Science.

Yet among all the distractions and diversions of a planet which now seemed well on the way to becoming one vast playground, there were some who still found time to repeat an ancient and never-answered question: "Where do we go from here?

I'd hate to do arithmetic, George thought to himself, in a system based on fourteen.

Hal (for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer, no less) was a masterwork of the third computer breakthrough.

They no longer formed a single group, united in the common cause of survival. Now their lives had diverged again into a score of independent aims and ambitions. Humanity had swallowed them up once more, and the ocean swallows a raindrop.

for a well-stocked mind is safe from boredom.

The ladies were quite uninterested; either because they did not care for mathematics, or preferred to ignore birthdays.

Believe me, it gives us no pleasure to destroy men's faiths, but all the world's religions cannot be right, and they know it.

It was good to be alive; it was better to be young; it was best of all to be in love.

could one make up for lack of moral courage by proving physical bravery?

And as for you, Paul, I assured him that you could keep a secret for up to six days without apoplexy.

Once is an accident; twice is a coincidence; three times is a conspiracy.

They'd all been carefully screened by the F.B.I., so probably not more than half a dozen were active members of the Communist Party.

The billion-year battle against the force of gravity was over.

If the present is shitty and the future is worse, the past is all you've got