“You don’t think progress goes in a straight line, do you? Do you recognize that it is an ascending, accelerating, maybe even exponential curve? It takes hell’s own time to get started, but when it goes it goes like a bomb.”

—  Frederik Pohl

Day Million (p. 441)
Platinum Pohl (2005)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "You don’t think progress goes in a straight line, do you? Do you recognize that it is an ascending, accelerating, maybe…" by Frederik Pohl?
Frederik Pohl photo
Frederik Pohl36
American science fiction writer and editor 1919–2013

Related quotes

Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo

“Time goes faster the more hollow it is. Lives with no meaning go straight past you, like trains that don’t stop at your station.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Usama Mukwaya photo

“Do it now if you can, when you can. Sometimes later goes for never.”

Usama Mukwaya (1989) Ugandan screenwriter

Edna O'Brien photo

“… people liking you or not liking you is an accident and is to do with them and not you. That goes for love too, only more so.”

Edna O'Brien book Girls in Their Married Bliss

Source: Girls in Their Married Bliss

Orson Scott Card photo

“That’s how it goes within a family. You think you know each other so well, and so you don’t bother hardly getting to know each other at all.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Prentice Alvin (1989), Chapter 2.

Mooji photo

“Everything you can perceive comes and goes, including your own body. You are the one looking at time, objects, and even thoughts and emotions.”

Mooji (1954) Jamaican spiritual teacher

Greater than Sky, Vaster than Space, (2018), Part I

Lewis Black photo

“I believe that the way in which we should truly live is we should think about what we're going to do, and then not do it. Your boss comes in on Monday and goes, "Hey! You're my go-to guy — I need a report by Friday." You go, "I'll get right on it, chief!" And then you head back to your desk and you put your feet up and you spend the week thinking about it. And then he comes in on Friday and goes, "Where's my report?" And you say, with a big grin on your face, "I didn't do it!" And he goes, "Why not?"”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

and then you say, "Because I didn't want to disappoint you!"
Anticipation (2008)

Tom Clancy photo

“You don't pick generals off park benches. … They are experts at what they do and lot of thinking goes into it.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

1990s, CNN interview (1999)
Context: My vision for this book and the others in the series is to let people know what kind of commanders we have. You don't pick generals off park benches. … They are experts at what they do and lot of thinking goes into it. And I want to get across to people the intellectual dimension of command, to let people know that it's hard to be a general. And the people we have with general stars on their shoulders are pretty smart and pretty good guys.

Nastassja Kinski photo

“I don't understand acting. Sometimes I only understand it while I'm doing it, and sometimes not even then. You cannot study acting. You can get new tools to use…, but you can't become something by studying, you just can't. You can become better. But some people can't even do that. They are best when they are very young because they are restless. When the restlessness settles, the acting goes. When acting goes for me, I'll just stop and do something else. I hope I always will get better and better, meaning bigger and bigger and more courageous and deeper and lighter and more flexible. But when it's time to go, it's time to go. There is no use trying to ride a wooden horse.”

Nastassja Kinski (1961) German actress

As quoted in Denise Worrell (1989), Icons: Intimate Portraits.

Related topics