“Memory and dust, he thought, link us to the past.”
Clifford D. Simak book Time and Again
Source: Time and Again (1951), Chapter XLIII (p. 224)
Quotes from bookTime and Again
Time and Again is a 1951 science fiction novel by American writer Clifford D. Simak. An alternate paperback title was First He Died; it was also serialized as Time Quarry.The plot involved a long-lost spaceman returning to Earth from a distant planet where the "souls" of humans may live. His fuddled observations spark a religious schism and war, and "future folk insist [he] should be killed on sight as he will otherwise write a book that, because it tells a truth inconvenient to religious bigots, will cause the death of millions". Evolutionary transcendence is a theme, as it was for a number of other Simak novels. The novel is one of Simak's more popular works.
“Before Man goes to the stars he should learn how to live on Earth.”
Clifford D. Simak book Time and Again
Source: Time and Again (1951), Chapter XLI (p. 204)
“It wouldn’t be the truth,” said Sutton.
“That,” said Trevor, “doesn’t have a thing to do with it.”
Clifford D. Simak book Time and Again
Source: Time and Again (1951), Chapter XLII (p. 220)
“They are worse than the disinherited. They are not the has-beens, they are the never-weres.”
Clifford D. Simak book Time and Again
Source: Time and Again (1951), Chapter II (p. 14)
Clifford D. Simak book Time and Again
Source: Time and Again (1951), Chapter V (pp. 27-28)
Context: “You do not belong to any bona fide religion that prohibits killing?”
“I presume I could classify myself as a Christian,” said Sutton. “I believe there is a Commandment about killing.”
The robot shook his head. “It doesn’t count.”
“It is clear and specific,” Sutton argued. “It says, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”
“It is all of that,” the robot told him. “But it has been discredited. You humans discredited it yourselves. You never obeyed it. You either obey a law or you forfeit it. You can’t forget it with one breath and invoke it with the next.”
Clifford D. Simak book Time and Again
Source: Time and Again (1951), Chapter XIX (p. 99)
Context: As he looked, Sutton felt the cold hand of loneliness reach down with icy fingers to take him in its grip. For here was sheer, mad loneliness such as he had never dreamed. Here was the very negation of life and motion, here was the stark, bald beginning when there was no life, nor even thought of life. Here anything that knew or thought or moved was an alien thing, a disease, a cancer on the face of nothingness.
Clifford D. Simak book Time and Again
Source: Time and Again (1951), Chapter I (p. 6)
Context: There is mystery here, but a soft, sure mystery that is understood and only remains a mystery because I want it so. The mystery of the nighthawk against a darkening sky, the puzzle of the firefly along the lilac hedge.
