Arthur C. Clarke · 352 pages
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“Because politics is the science of the possible, it only appeals to second-rate minds. The first raters only interested in the impossible”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Fountains of Paradise
“Instantly, there had been cries of protest from the industrial archaeologists, outraged at such vandalism, and from the naturalists, who pointed out that the penguins simply loved the abandoned pipeline.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Fountains of Paradise
“Belief in God is apparently a psychological arti-fact of mammalian reproduction.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Fountains of Paradise
“Tranquillity was not a state of mind that could be sustained for long.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Fountains of Paradise
“But there was no substitute for reality; one should beware of imitations.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Fountains of Paradise
“Though he had a devoted coterie of fans who subscribed to his information service—in an earlier age, he would have been called a pop scientist—he had an even larger circle of critics. The kinder ones considered that he had been educated beyond his intelligence. The others labeled him a self-employed idiot. It”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Fountains of Paradise
“And as for you, Paul, I assured him that you could keep a secret for up to six days without apoplexy.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Fountains of Paradise
“The hypothesis you refer to as God, though not disprovable by logic alone, is unnecessary for the following reason. “If you assume that the universe can be quote explained unquote as the creation of an entity known as God, he must obviously be of a higher degree of organization than his product. Thus you have more than doubled the size of the original problem, and have taken the first step on a diverging infinite regress.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Fountains of Paradise
“I love the slow, warming sensation of my body going numb when I drink.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“What haunts me is not exactly the absence of literal space so much as a deep craving for metaphorical space: release, escape, some kind of open-ended freedom.”
― Naomi Klein, quote from No Logo
“It was safe to say, standing as close to him as she was, that she was very aware of the rise of his aroused sensuality. Even if his hand had not been burning across her skin, the unapologetic hardness of his body pressing with erotic familiarity against hers would have told her how very much lost in his need for her he was. Gideon had to be the most sexual creature she had ever encountered. And yet, only a few short days ago, if she had been asked her opinion on that particular subject, she would have made suppositions that were quite the opposite. Was he telling her the truth when he said it was because of her?
“I never lie, my beauty,” he murmured, reminding her of her own understandings about that. His lips against her hair, just beneath the back of her ear, were warm and smiling even as he kissed the thrillingly sensitive spot. “And even if I were just a dirty old man, Neliss,” he whispered like the warmth of sunshine in her ear, “it would never account for the tenderness you see in me even now.” He tightened his hold on her, drawing her so close that he burned hotly against her. “And you would have been in my bed, beneath the press of my body, open and inviting me in by now.”
The raw observation and the aggressive heat of his body made her grasp, a mix between shocked sensibilities and excited delight. Legna looked up into his famished eyes, licking her lips with a hunger all her own.
“If we do not find something to do, we will end up in bed together,” she reminded him with her heart pounding so obviously against his chest.
“Yes. Perhaps without the intention of rousing until Jacob and Bella’s Beltane wedding,” he mused, the pleasure of the speculation quite evident in his expression.
It was an attractive thought to Legna as well, especially as his mouth dipped beneath her hair to continue to tease the sensitive skin of her neck. But just the same, she took matters into her own hand, so to speak, and teleported out of his grasp, reappearing all the way on the other side of the room. Finding his arms so abruptly vacated, Gideon gave her an eloquent look. She was going to pay for her little trick one day, and his eyes promised it to her as thoroughly as a worded threat.”
― Jacquelyn Frank, quote from Gideon
“One girl made flatbread, another cleaned and sliced greens, cucumbers and mushrooms, and a third made dressing of olive oil, vinegars and herbs. So while they waited they had greens and mushrooms tossed in the dressing with crumbled goat cheese on top to eat on the folded-up flatbread.
There was more flatbread to sop up the juices of the stewed rabbit and vegetables, and the dragons appeared, as they were finishing the meal, with yet more flatbread and honey.”
― Mercedes Lackey, quote from One Good Knight
“It was a truism that all civilizations were basically neurotic until they made contact with everybody else and found their place within the ever-changing meta-civilisation of other beings, because, until then, during the stage when they honestly believed they might be entirely alone in existence, all solo societies were possessed of both an inflated sense of their own importance and a kind of existential terror at the sheer scale and apparent emptiness of the universe.”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from The Algebraist
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