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Attempting to define science fiction is an undertaking almost as difficult, though not so popular, as trying to define pornography... In both pornography and SF, the problem lies in knowing exactly where to draw the line.

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
Lying
Exactly
Undertaking
Difficult
Lies
Undertakings
Line
Pornography
Science
Fiction
Attempting
Problem
Lines
Define
Trying
Almost
Draw
Knowing
Popular
Though
Draws

More quotes by Arthur C. Clarke

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Belief in God is apparently a psychological artifact of mammalian reproduction.
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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You don't believe in organized religion, yet a major theme in so many of your works seems to be a quest for God.
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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Humor was the enemy of desire.
Arthur C. Clarke
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If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they can't be very important gods.
Arthur C. Clarke
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In accordance with the terms of the Clarke-Asimov treaty, the second-best science writer dedicates this book to the second-best science-fiction writer. [dedication to Isaac Asimov from Arthur C. Clarke in his book Report on Planet Three]
Arthur C. Clarke
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Space is what stops everything from happening in the same place.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Many, and some of the most pressing, of our terrestrial problems can be solved only by going into space. Long before it was a vanishing commodity, the wilderness as the preservation of the world was proclaimed by Thoreau. In the new wilderness of the Solar System may lie the future preservation of mankind.
Arthur C. Clarke
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How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.
Arthur C. Clarke
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We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return...
Arthur C. Clarke
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All human plans [are] subject to ruthless revision by Nature, or Fate, or whatever one preferred to call the powers behind the Universe.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Death focuses the mind on the things that really matter: why are we here, and what should we do?
Arthur C. Clarke
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If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run-and often in the short one-the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.
Arthur C. Clarke
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When all else failed, you had to rely on eyeball intrumentation.
Arthur C. Clarke
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One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Now, before you make a movie, you have to have a script, and before you have a script, you have to have a story though some avant-garde directors have tried to dispense with the latter item, you'll find their work only at art theaters.
Arthur C. Clarke
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When I start on a book, I have been thinking about it and making occasional notes for some time... So I have lots of theme, locale, subjects and technical ideas... I don't worry about long periods of not doing anything. I know my subconscious is busy.
Arthur C. Clarke
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The moment when one first meets a great work of art has an impact that can never again be recaptured.
Arthur C. Clarke