M. Clarke Quotes

There is a special sadness in achievement, in the knowledge that a long-desired goal has been attained at last, and that life must now be shaped toward new ends.

One theory which can no longer be taken very seriously is that UFOs are interstellar spaceships.

Space can be mapped and crossed and occupied without definable limit; but it can never be conquered.

Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of a ll Utopias - boredom.

It may be that the old astrologers had the truth exactly reversed, when they believed that the stars controlled the destinies of men. The time may come when men control the destinies of stars.

SETI is probably the most important quest of our time , and it amazes me that governments and corporations are not supporting it sufficiently.

When the Sun shrinks to a dull red dwarf, it will not be dying. It will just be starting to live and everything that has gone before will merely be a prelude to its real history.

Perhaps no other year before or since 1984 has been awaited with such eager anticipation.

Since women are better at producing babies, presumably Nature has given men some talent to compensate. But for the moment I can't think of it.

A single test which proves some piece of theory wrong is more valuable than a hundred tests showing that idea might be true.

Why, Robert Singh often wondered, did we give our hearts to friends whose life spans are so much shorter than our own?

As three laws were good enough for Newton, I have modestly decided to stop there.

Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

I've discovered that the less I say, the more rumors I start.

Some people, when desperate, retreat to pills or hard liquor. I nap.

The woman who takes a woman lover lives dangerously in patriarchy.

You could say people are living longer because of the decline in religion. Not many people believe in the hereafter, so they keep going.

Just making sure the boys are okay is my priority in life, and that takes up all of my time right now.

All books are merely delayed dust.

When we trust our brother, whom we have seen, we are learning to trust God, whom we have not seen.

Whenever we do what we can, we immediately can do more.

I love you no matter what you do, but do you have to do so much of it?

People rise and fall on the basis of the makings of institutions.

We never see ourselves as heroes and sometimes when we do it is a hero that has made a fortune as a clown or a boxer. And there is no lasting value in either one of those.

History is like a clock, it tells you your time of day.

You should not bear insults.

If God is love, then God has no stepchildren to love.

All life is a test one way or the other.

You walk out in the street, we don't know if we're going to get across. It's a test.

In the United States, the Supreme Court's decision of 1954, outlawing segregation in school systems, was greeted with mixed feelings of hope and skepticism by African-Americans.

The standard reason for Thanksgiving doesn't mean nothing to me.

The Conservative Party have got to ask themselves, 'How do we persuade people who at the moment are voting Labour and Liberal Democrat to vote Conservative

I am getting frustrated by the fact that we have been out of office for eight years. I desperately want to lead the Conservative Party to make quicker progress back into power.

There's a lot of good things about England, but I don't want to tell you too many of them.

Always wake up with a smile on your face, because a lot of people who went to sleep last night are not with us this morning.

Of course, people told me, 'Mikey, you will never be an actor. You don't have the look. You're ugly.'

Whatever God gave you, you have to work that to your best ability - especially out here in Hollywood, the land of beautiful people.

My sister used to say I had a frail chest and she 'd beat me up all the time.

I'm a nice guy to anyone I meet, until they show me they don't deserve niceness. I'll turn very quickly. But I'm pretty pleasant overall.

Ethics and Science need to shake hands.

You can disseminate your art, and it's all such easy access now. The upside to it is that more people are creating than ever before.

Well, I suppose one ought not to employ a magician and then complain that he does not behave like other people.

Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.

It is these black clothes," said Strange. "I am like a leftover piece of funeral, condemned to walk about the Town, frightening people into thinking of their own mortality.

I used to do all my programming on a BBC computer. It was limited to 16 tracks, and you used the keyboard, not a mouse, to input, but I was using it so long, I got quite fast at it.

What was more, they had taken the first step toward genuine friendship. They had exchanged vulnerabilities.

Now times had changed, and the inherited wisdom of the past had become folly.

All abuse and waste of God's creatures are spoil and robbery on the property of the Creator.

Man may be considered as having a twofold origin - natural, which is common and the same to all - patronymic, which belongs to the various families of which the whole human race is composed.

I sometimes think that the universe is a machine designed for the perpetual astonishment of astronomers.