Quotes from book
There Will Be Time

There Will Be Time

There Will Be Time is a science fiction novel by American writer Poul Anderson. It was published in 1972 in a hardback edition by Doubleday and in 1973 in a paperback edition by New American Library.


Poul Anderson photo
Poul Anderson photo
Poul Anderson photo

“I walk beyond town, many of these nights, to stand under the high autumnal stars, look upward and wonder.”

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 16 (p. 176; closing words)

Poul Anderson photo

“Missile: A self-contained device which delivers high explosives from the air, condemned because of its effects upon women, children, the aged, the sick, and other non-combatants, unless these happen to have resided in Saigon, Da Nang, Hué, etc. Cf. bombing.”

Variant: Bombing: A method of warfare which delivers high explosives from the air, condemned because of its effects upon women, children, the aged, the sick, and other non-combatants, unless these happen to have resided in Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Osaka, etc., though not Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Cf. missile.
Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 3 (p. 30)

Poul Anderson photo
Poul Anderson photo
Poul Anderson photo
Poul Anderson photo

“Mortal combat corrupts, and war corrupts absolutely.”

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 10 (p. 107)

Poul Anderson photo
Poul Anderson photo

“Did ignorance save his freedom, or merely his illusion of freedom?”

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 12 (p. 130)

Poul Anderson photo
Poul Anderson photo

“Be calm. A man can do but little. Enough if that little be right.”

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 11 (p. 126)

Poul Anderson photo
Poul Anderson photo
Poul Anderson photo
Poul Anderson photo
Poul Anderson photo

“Yeah. ‘Environment’ was very big for a while. Ecology Now stickers on the windshields of cars belonging to hairy young men—cars which dripped oil wherever they parked and took off in clouds of smoke thicker than your pipe can produce…Before long, the fashionable cause was something else, I forget what. Anyhow, that whole phase—the wave after wave of causes—passed away. People completely stopped caring…
I feel a moral certainty that a large part of the disaster grew from this particular country, the world’s most powerful, the vanguard country for things both good and ill…never really trying to meet the responsibilities of power.
We’ll make halfhearted attempts to stop some enemies in Asia, and because the attempts are halfhearted we’ll piss away human lives—on both sides—and treasure—to no purpose. Hoping to placate the implacable, we’ll estrange our last few friends. Men elected to national office will solemnly identify inflation with rising prices, which is like identifying red spots with the measles virus, and slap on wage and price controls, which is like papering the cracks in a house whose foundations are sliding away. So economic collapse brings international impotence…As for our foolish little attempts to balance what we drain from the environment against what we put back—well, I mentioned that car carrying the ecology sticker.
At first Americans will go on an orgy of guilt. Later they’ll feel inadequate. Finally they’ll turn apathetic. After all, they’ll be able to buy any anodyne, any pseudo-existence they want.”

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 5 (pp. 53-54)

Poul Anderson photo

“His conscience must have gotten tired of nagging him and delivered an ultimatum.”

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 10 (p. 104)

Poul Anderson photo
Poul Anderson photo

“Silence fell. The clock on my mantel ticked aloud and the wind outside flowed past like a river.”

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 16 (p. 175)

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