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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 o...more

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In accordance with the terms of the Clarke-Asimov treaty, the second-bestscience writer dedicates this book to the second-best science-fictionwriter.[...more

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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,...more

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And so Discovery drove on toward Saturn, as often as not pulsating with the cool music of the harpsichord, the frozen thoughts of a brain that had bee...more

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Few artists thrive in solitude and nothing is more stimulating than the conflict of minds with similar interests.

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How inappropriate to call this planet "Earth," when it is clearly "Ocean.

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I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.

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The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible

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When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossibl...more

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Sometimes, during the lonely hours on the control deck, Bowman would listen to this radiation. He would turn up the gain until the room filled with a ...more

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Oh God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine...more

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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.""Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Bot...more

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(...)Through the ship's telescopes, he had watched the death of the solar system. With his own eyes, he had seen the volcanoes of Mars erupt for the f...more

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Slowly, Jimmy held up his outstretched hands. Men had been arguing for two hundred years about this gesture; would every creature, everywhere in the u...more

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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 towar...more