Quotes from book
Contact

Name: Contact
Author: Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Contact is a 1985 science fiction novel by American scientist Carl Sagan. It deals with the theme of contact between humanity and a more technologically advanced, extraterrestrial life form. It ranked No. 7 on the 1985 U.S. bestseller list. The novel originated as a screenplay by Sagan and Ann Druyan in 1979; when development of the film stalled, Sagan decided to convert the stalled film into a novel. The film concept was subsequently revived and eventually released in 1997 as the film Contact starring Jodie Foster.

“That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Quoting Emily Dickinson; The Poems of Emily Dickinson http://books.google.gr/books?id=LoH2SXEnnoEC&dq=, 3:1171, no. 1741
Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 22 (p. 393)

“If we like them, they’re freedom fighters, she thought. If we don’t like them, they’re terrorists. In the unlikely case we can’t make up our minds, they’re temporarily only guerrillas.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 3 (p. 55)

““Do you understand what’s going on?”
“Not at all,” he shouted back. “I can almost prove this can’t be happening.””

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 19 (p. 330)

“If the press descended, the science would surely suffer.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 5 (p. 75)

“Many harebrained interpretations were also widely available, especially in weekly newspapers.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 13 (p. 216)

“Humans are good, she knew, at discerning subtle patterns that are really there, but equally so at imagining them when they are altogether absent.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 3 (p. 44)

“In Mozambique, the story goes, monkeys do not talk, because they know if they utter even a single word some man will come and put them to work.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 18 (p. 313)

“The chiliasts made an atheist out of me.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 15 (p. 258)

“The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can’t all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It’s a possibility, you know. You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical. I’m not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they’re called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 10 (p. 162)

“She too had found the experience transforming. How could she not? A demon had been exorcised. Several. And just when she felt more capable of love than she had ever been, she found herself alone.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 23 (p. 407)

“Let’s see if I’ve got this straight,” he returned. It was a phrase of hers that he had adopted “It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon, and there’s this couple lying naked in bed reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica to each other, and arguing about whether the Andromeda Galaxy is more ‘numinous’ than the Resurrection. Do they know how to have a good time or don’t they?”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 9 (p. 154)

“We could not guess how different from us they (extraterrestrials) might be.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 3 (p. 48)
Context: We could not guess how different from us they (extraterrestrials) might be. It was hard enough to guess the intentions of our elected representatives in Washington.

“In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 20 (p. 359)
Context: In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It’s their nature. They can’t help it.

“The universe was made on purpose, the circle said.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 24 (p. 431)
Context: The universe was made on purpose, the circle said. In whatever galaxy you happen to find yourself, you take the circumference of a circle, divide it by its diameter, measure closely enough, and uncover a miracle — another circle, drawn kilometers downstream of the decimal point. There would be richer messages farther in. It doesn't matter what you look like, or what you're made of, or where you come from. As long as you live in this universe, and have a modest talent for mathematics, sooner or later you'll find it. It's already here. It's inside everything. You don't have to leave your planet to find it. In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist’s signature. Standing over humans, gods, and demons, subsuming Caretakers and Tunnel builders, there is an intelligence that antedates the universe.