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'2001' was written in an age which now lies beyond one of the great divides in human history we are sundered from it forever by the moment when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out on to the Sea of Tranquility. Now history and fiction have become inexorably intertwined.

Arthur C. Clarke

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Arthur C. Clarke
Age: 90 †
Born: 1917
Born: December 16
Died: 2008
Died: March 19
Engineer
Explorer
Film Writer
Inventor
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Scientist
Screenwriter
Writer
Minehead
Somerset
Arthur Charles Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke
Charles Willis
Arthur Clarke
History
Lies
Neil
Moments
Beyond
Intertwined
Become
Fiction
Armstrong
Human
Written
Buzz
Humans
Forever
Stepped
Great
Age
Tranquility
Lying
Divides
Sundered
Moment
Sea
Inexorably

More quotes by Arthur C. Clarke

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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Using material ferried up by rockets, it would be possible to construct a space station in ... orbit. The station could be provided with living quarters, laboratories and everything needed for the comfort of its crew, who would be relieved and provisioned by a regular rocket service. (1945)
Arthur C. Clarke
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A single test which proves some piece of theory wrong is more valuable than a hundred tests showing that idea might be true.
Arthur C. Clarke
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People go through four stages before any revolutionary development: 1. It's nonsense, don't waste my time. 2. It's interesting, but not important. 3. I always said it was a good idea. 4. I thought of it first.
Arthur C. Clarke
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One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a flexibility of the mind. Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.
Arthur C. Clarke
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I'm quite fond of the writer who told a beginning author, If you've got a message, use Western Union.
Arthur C. Clarke
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It was one thing to have guessed it, another to have had that guess confirmed beyond possibility of refutation.
Arthur C. Clarke
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He found it both sad and fascinating that only through an artificial universe of video images could she establish contact with the real world.
Arthur C. Clarke
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The creation of wealth is certainly not to be despised, but in the long run the only human activities really worthwhile are the search for knowledge, and the creation of beauty. This is beyond argument, the only point of debate is which comes first.
Arthur C. Clarke
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A man who grows that much hair,' critics were fond of saying, 'must have a lot to hide.
Arthur C. Clarke
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And because, in all the Galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars they sowed, and sometimes they reaped. And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.
Arthur C. Clarke
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There's a passage about 'rivers of molten rock that wound their way... until they cooled and lay like twisted dragon-shapes vomited from the tormented earth.' That's a perfect description: how did Tolkien know, a quarter century before anyone ever saw a picture of Io? Talk about Nature imitating Art.
Arthur C. Clarke
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No communication technology has ever disappeared, but instead becomes increasingly less important as the technological horizon widens.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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.
Arthur C. Clarke
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There were some things that only time could cure. Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Training was one thing, reality another.
Arthur C. Clarke
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The crossing of space ... may do much to turn men's minds outwards and away from their present tribal squabbles. In this sense, the rocket, far from being one of the destroyers of civilisation, may provide the safety-value that is needed to preserve it.
Arthur C. Clarke
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The only real problem in life is what to do next.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Look, whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything.) Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.
Arthur C. Clarke