Quotes from Arthur C. Clarke

Good morning, Dr. Chandra. This is Hal. I am ready for my first lesson." There

The Man Who Ploughed the Sea First published in Satellite, June 1957 Collected in Tales from the White Hart This story was written in Miami, in 1954. Despite the lapse of time, many of the themes of this story are surprisingly up-to-date, and a few years ago I was amazed to read a description in a scientific journal of a ship-borne device to extract uranium from sea water! I sent a copy of the story to the inventors, and apologised for invalidating their patent.

The Eagle had stopped talking for a moment. When Nicole looked at the alien again, his mesmerizing eyes seemed to be expressing an emotion. "Besides, you are special to us. You have played a key role in this endeavor.

Men's minds were too valuable to waste on tasks that a few thousand transistors, some photo-electric cells, and a cubic meter of printed circuits could perform. There were factories that ran for weeks without being visited by a single human being. Men were needed for trouble-shooting, for making decisions, for planning new enterprises. The robots did the rest.

Endeavour could be contacted only through PLANETCOM, which was an autonomous corporation famous for the strictness and efficiency of its accounting. It took a long time to establish a line of credit with PLANETCOM. Somewhere, someone was working on this, but, at the moment, PLANETCOM's hardhearted computers did not recognize the existence of the Rama Committee.

The truth, as always, will be far stranger.

Week by week, month by month, it slowly faded, though even when it moved back into the daylight sky it was still easy to find if one knew exactly where to look. And at night for years it was often the brightest of the stars. Mirissa saw it one last time, just before her eyesight failed.

When, taking all factors into account, anything can be proved to be impossible, that usually means that it will be done in some different manner and employing a new and unforeseen technique.

There was a smell of nitric oxides as the air itself started to burn in the beam of the laser torch, and a steady sizzling as the fiery knife sliced towards secrets that had been hidden since the birth of man.

There was only one Eye, though it had many projections into spacetime. And it had many functions.

The cause of suffering is desire

Here was age inconceivable—but not death, for the Moon had never lived—until now.

They want the shield, but they don't like having to pay for it—

are industrial accidents.

for every man who has ever lived, in this Universe there shines a star

Fortunately, human beings are extraordinarily resilient: it takes a pretty bad upbringing to do permanent damage.

One does not replace a blown fuse-until one knows just why it has blown

Dear Mr Jinx: I'm afraid your idea is not at all original. Stories about writers whose work is always plagiarised even before they can complete it go back at least to H. G. Wells's 'The Anticipator'. About once a week I receive a manuscript beginning:

The Ghost in the Machine.

the goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That's why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system.

You see," Nicole added, "the mythological Eden was a beginning, the start of what we might call our modern Western culture.

It was a non-Hermian joke that any child who showed signs of interest in art, philosophy, or abstract mathematics was plowed straight back into the hydroponic farms.

Undoubtedly, I am biased, but among these tales such masterpieces as 'The Star', 'The Crystal Egg', 'The Flowering of the Strange Orchid', and, above all, 'The Country of the Blind' blaze like diamonds amid costume jewellery.

chronology protection conjecture?