Quotes from 2010: Odyssey Two

Arthur C. Clarke ·  320 pages

Rating: (43.1K votes)


“What was more, they had taken the first step toward genuine friendship. They had exchanged vulnerabilities.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“It must be wonderful to be seventeen, and to know everything.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“After their encounter on the approach to Jupiter, there would aways be a secret bond between them---not of love, but of tenderness, which is often more enduring.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“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, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference; we should each be treated with appropriate respect.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two



“Humor was the enemy of desire.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“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, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“Floyd could imagine a dozen things that could go wrong; it was little consolation that it was always the thirteenth that actually happened.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“Some dangers are so spectacular and so much beyond normal experience that the mind refuses to accept them as real, and watches the approach of doom without any sense of apprehension. The man who looks at the onrushing tidal wave, the descending avalanche, or the spinning funnel of the tornado, yet makes no attempt to flee, is not necessarily paralyzed with fright or resigned to an unavoidable fate. He may simply be unable to believe that the message of his eyes concerns him personally. It is all happening to somebody else.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT EUROPA.
ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.
USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two



“Good morning, Dr. Chandra. This is Hal. I am ready for my first lesson.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of omnipotence; their experiments did not always succeed.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“But it had been widely argued that advanced intelligence could never arise in the sea; there were not enough challenges in so benign and unvarying an environment.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“He left the unspoken question hanging in the air. How did one annoy a two- kilometre-long black rectangular slab? And just what form would its disapproval take”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“Men knew better than they realized, when they placed the abode of the gods beyond the reach of gravity.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two



“A major part of his job was deciding when warnings could be ignored, when they could be dealt with at leisure—and when they had to be treated as real emergencies. If he paid equal attention to all the ship’s cries for help, he would never get anything done. He”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“This hydrogen was under such enormous pressure that it had become a metal.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“The core of Jupiter, forever beyond human reach, was a diamond as big as the Earth.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of absolute omnipotence;”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“In a rare flash of humor, she had replied: “Woody, a commander can be wrong, but never uncertain.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two



“Floyd made it a rule never to worry about events over which he could have absolutely no control; any external threat would reveal itself in due time and must be dealt with then. But he could not help wondering if they had done”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“Woody, a commander can be wrong, but never uncertain.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“How foolish that expectation had been! He knew now that one might as well hope to see the wind, or speculate about the true shape of fire.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“Astronomy was full of such intriguing but meaningless coincidences. The most famous was the fact that, from the Earth, both Sun and Moon have the same apparent diameter.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“The crew of Apollo 8, who at Christmas, 1968, became the first men ever to set eyes upon the Lunar Farside, told me that they had been tempted to radio back the discovery of a large black monolith: alas, discretion prevailed.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two



“His mind wandered, seeking other examples. People—particularly older ones—still spoke of putting film into a camera, or gas into a car. Even the phrase “cutting a tape” was still sometimes heard in recording studios—though that embraced two generations of obsolete technologies.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“This would involve disconnection—the computer equivalent of death. Despite”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“Hal in full control of the ship. The”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“For the last time, David Bowman slept.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two


“The image of Jupiter, with its ribbons of white cloud, its mottled bands of salmon pink, and the Great Red Spot staring out like a baleful eye, hung steady on the flight-deck projection screen.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from 2010: Odyssey Two



About the author

Arthur C. Clarke
Born place: in Minehead, Somerset, England, The United Kingdom
Born date December 16, 1917
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