Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRASwas a British science fiction writer, science writer and futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 December 1917
Arthur C. Clarke quotes about
ideas three done
New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can't be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!
change ideas interesting
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.
book thinking ideas
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.
ideas pieces might
A single test which proves some piece of theory wrong is more valuable than a hundred tests showing that idea might be true.
relationship secret encounters
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.
art rocks dragons
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.
life time dark
I sometimes wonder how we spent leisure time before satellite television and Internet came along…and then I realise that I have spent more than half of my life in the ‘dark ages’!
careers space imagination
I'm sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I've had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer - one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.
zero honesty funny-life
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
science may lasts
Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.
communication technology important
No communication technology has ever disappeared, but instead becomes increasingly less important as the technological horizon widens.
mind matter should
Death focuses the mind on the things that really matter: why are we here, and what should we do?
religious nice intelligent
I have encountered a few 'creationists' and because they were usually nice, intelligent people, I have been unable to decide whether they were really mad or only pretending to be mad. If I was a religious person, I would consider creationism nothing less than blasphemy. Do its adherents imagine that God is a cosmic hoaxer who has created the whole vast fossil record for the sole purpose of misleading humankind ?
imagination people chemistry
... chemistry is a trade for people without enough imagination to be physicists.