Quotes from Arthur C. Clarke

There's no real objection to escapism, in the right places... We all want to escape occasionally. But science fiction is often very far from escapism, in fact you might say that science fiction is escape into reality... It's a fiction which does concern itself with real issues: the origin of man; our future. In fact I can't think of any form of literature which is more concerned with real issues, reality.

If we both believe that we have nothing to learn from the other, is it not obvious that we will both be wrong?

man's beliefs were his own affair, so long as they did not interfere with the liberty of others.

It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.

He was prepared, he thought, for any wonder. The only thing he had never expected was the utterly commonplace.

He had a suspicion of plausible answers; they were so often wrong.

Even by the twenty-second century, no way had yet been discovered of keeping elderly and conservative scientists from occupying crucial administrative positions. Indeed, it was doubted if the problem ever would be solved.

There is no reason to assume that the universe has the slightest interest in intelligence—or even in life. Both may be random accidental by-products of its operations like the beautiful patterns on a butterfly's wings. The insect would fly just as well without them.

He found it both sad and fascinating that only through an artificial universe of video images could she establish contact with the real world.

Floyd could imagine a dozen things that could go wrong; it was little consolation that it was always the thirteenth that actually happened.

Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded.

all the world's religions cannot be right, and they know it. Sooner or later man has to learn the truth:

He did not know that the Old One was his father, for such a relationship was utterly beyond his understanding, but as he looked at the emaciated body he felt a dim disquiet that was the ancestor of sadness.

For if not true, they are well imagined...

He was moving through a new order of creation, of which few men had ever dreamed. Beyond the realms of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire, which he alone had been privileged to glimpse. It was too much to expect that he would also understand.

When the reality was depressing, men tried to console themselves with myth.

It was a pity that there was no radar to guide one across the trackless seas of life. Every man had to find his own way, steered by some secret compass of the soul. And sometimes, late or early, the compass lost its power and spun aimlessly on its bearings. Alan Bishop

A wise man once said that all human activity is a form of play. And the highest form of play is the search for Truth, Beauty and Love. What more is needed? Should there be a 'meaning' as well, that will be a bonus? If we waste time looking for life's meaning, we may have no time to live — or to play.

If man can live in Manhattan, he can live anywhere.

The greatest danger is panic

He was only aware of the conflict that was slowly destroying his integrity—the conflict between truth, and concealment of truth.

We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return ...

Training was one thing, reality another, and no one could be sure that the ancient human instincts of self-preservation would not take over in an emergency.

CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.