Jack McDevitt Quotes

An ocean with a single shore gets little traffic.

See what the world looks like from orbit. Well, in that way, at least, there was profit to be had. Nobody could look down at the planet, green and blue, with no borders in evidence and no sign of human habitation, and not get his perspective forever altered.

If you want creative and successful children, resign yourself to jousting with rebels.

The vast majority of us are far more capable than we realize. We grow up with parents, teachers, bosses all telling us what we can't do. Don't touch it; you'll break it. They mean well, but they leave us with a sense of our own incapacity. When the day comes, if it comes, that you begin to believe in yourself, the world will be yours.

What would happen is that people like Geroge and Alyx would grow old and die chasing a dream. Although there were probably worse things to do with one's life.

Truly evil persons do not recognize their own malevolence. They perceive themselves as generous, good-hearted, friendly sorts, who sometimes have to resort to unpleasant tactics for the general betterment of society. Even the historical monsters seem to have had no second thoughts about the damage they were causing. It was that way with Hitler and Oliver Moresby, just as it was with the Greer Avenue Strangler.

The individual human life span is brief and, in the long view, inconsequential,' he said. 'We are children one day and signing out the next. Therefore, in the brief moment we are allotted, live reasonably, be compassionate, and when your hour comes, accept it without histrionics. Never forget that your handful of hours is a supreme gift. Use them wisely, do not fritter them away, and remember that your life is not an entitlement.

Faith is conviction without evidence, and sometimes even in the face of contrary evidence. In some quarters, this quality is perceived as a virtue.

Time is like a river. As soon as a thing is seen, it is carried away and another takes its place, and then that other is carried away also.

One of the CNN guys was literally yelling. How can you say that? It's too dangerous for us? We still have people in Syria!

Drink deep the cup of life; take it's dark wine into your soul. For it passes round the table only once.

Lies hold civilization together. If people ever seriously begin telling each other what they really think, there'd be no peace. Good-bye to tact. Good-bye to being polite. Good-bye to showing tolerance for other people's buffooneries. The fact that we claim to admire Truth is probably the biggest lie of all. But that's part of the charade, part of what makes us human, and we do not even think about it. In effect, we lie to ourselves. Lies are only despicable when they betray a trust.

The most important thing we've done," he said to an audience at Andiquar University, "was to get off-world. That was the single act that opened the universe to us. We owe all that to the men and women who made the Apollo flights possible and especially to those who put their lives at risk, and who sometimes paid the price, to actually ride the vehicles. They got us started. Once we'd set foot on the Moon, it was inevitable that we'd go on to Rimway and Dellaconda and the edge of the galaxy. We knew it would take a while. That we'd get in our own way. That we'd be discouraged by the vast distances involved simply in going to Mars. We understood that we were probably facing an empty and cold universe. But it was the beginning, and in our hearts we must have known we would not be stopped.

Boundaries have no existence save on charts or in small minds. Nature does not draw lines.

Faith has its price. When misfortune strikes the true believer, he assumes he has done something to deserve punishment, but isn't quite certain what. The realist, recognizing that he lives in a Darwinian universe, is simply grateful to have made it to another sunset.

An optimist is somebody who thinks our various political and social systems, schools and churches, support groups and Boy Scout troops, jury trials and congressional committees, are on the up-and-up. That they are intended for the benefit of the members. The reality is that they are designed to keep everyone in line.

You wander around near Independence Park and the Hall of the People, and you get a sense that they will be there forever. But forever is a long time. The people who lived in Washington before the waters came probably thought that about their city. But it's all temporary, baby. Perpetuity is an illusion.

The queen of virtues is the recognition of one's own flaws.

People tend to believe that good fortune consists of equal parts talent, hard work, and sheer luck. It's hard to deny the roles of the latter two. As to talent, I would only say it consists primarily in finding the right moment to step in.

Home. It is the place where once we lived and laughed, where we grew up with the assumption that all would be well, where we met our first love, where life stretched endlessly ahead. This is the place that now becomes a desert of the heart.

Intelligence and compassion are the heart of what it means to be human. Help others where you can. That is clear enough. But a Creator may well want us to open our eyes, as well. If there is a judgment, God may not be particularly interested in how many hymns we sang or what prayers we memorized. I suspect He may instead look at us and say, "I gave you a brain, and you never used it. I gave you the stars, and you never looked." - Marcia Tolbert, Centauri Days, 3111 C.E.

Live from Babylon and Ur, From Athens and Alexandria and Rome, The voices of a thousand generations, Press us, Urge us on-.

Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters.

The Peacekeepers had a tradition that every problem had a solution. It was a nice slogan. Wasn't true, but it sounded good.

Sometimes the cost of integrity is the loss of a friend.

Superman and Batman got their start, we think, during the twenty-fourth century. Except for a brief period during the Dark Age, they've never gone away.

Man has always seen himself the peak of creation. The part of the universe that thinks. The purpose for it all. It's no doubt a gratifying view, but the universe may have a different opinion.

The truth is that when your people don't tell you what you need to know, it's a failure of leadership.

Tides are like politics. They come and go with a great deal of fuss and noise, but inevitably they leave the beach just as they found it. On those few occasions when major change does occur, it is rarely a good news.

When I was teaching English and trying to get kids passionate about reading, the most effective weapon I had was 'The Martian Chronicles.'

Talking with most people usually involves a search for truth. Talking with congressmen is strictly special effects.

And never forget," Michael said, "time travelers never die. No matter what you saw up ahead, about me, I'll always be here.

Put the money into schools. Rational ones that train young minds to think, to demand that persons in authority show the evidence for the ideas they push. Do that, and we won't need to provide a world for the Sacred Brethren who, given the opportunity, would run everyone else off the planet.

Doesn't matter, does it?" said George. "They're just as dead. Their blood is on your hands." "They don't have blood." "Humans are only literal when they're ashamed of something.

But, come to think of it, there was no need to wait. Time travelers don't have to wait for anybody.

Fear the assassin who waits in the lonely passages of the heart.

Science is an investigation into reality, how atoms interact and biological systems develop and stars give heat. Myth is also an investigation into reality, but into a reality of a different type: It informs us of the deepest desires and fears of the subconscious mind. The place where we really live.

All of the important things ... will turn out to be universally shared. It's why there will be no true aliens.

Throughout our long and sorry history it has been men who supposed themselves to be exemplars of integrity who have done all the damage. Every crusade, whether for decent literary standards or to cover women's bodies or to free the holy land, had been launched, endorsed, and enthusiastically perpetrated by men of character.

The real problem has to do with the inability by people to admit that a position they've held a long time might be wrong. That's all. Not that it is. Just that it might be. I don't know why it is, but we tend to fall in love with things we believe, Threaten them, and you threaten us.

When things go wrong, the standard management strategy is to decide who takes the blame. This should be an underling, as far down the chain as possible, but preferably with some visibility so people know management means business.

So long as men and women are free, no one is safe. People will be in danger because others can't operate vehicles responsibly or shoot straight. Because physicians are sometimes incompetent and lawyers dishonest. But most of all they will be in danger from ideas. It is the price we willingly pay to be free. Nor would we have it any other way.

So long as you believe in some truth you do not believe in yourself. You are a servant. A man of faith.

There is nothing that overwhelms the senses quite like an unwelcome silence.

And, in a way, we're all time travelers. Somehow, the entire temporal stream exists, but we're only conscious of a single moment.

If you want data to survive, carve it in rock.

Religion is like having children, or taking medicine, or eating, or any of a thousand other perfectly rational human activities: Taken in small doses, it has much to recommend it. One need only avoid going overboard.

The measure of a civilization is in the courage, not of its soldiers, but of its bystanders.

Universal deities ... never seem to smile. Not in any culture. What's the point of having omnipotence if you don't enjoy it?

Human existence is girt round with mystery: the narrow region of our experience is a small island in the midst of a boundless sea. To add to the mystery, the domain of our earthly existence is not only an island in infinite space, but also in infinite time. The past and the future are alike shrouded from us: we neither know the origin of anything which is, nor its final destination.

Life is a walk in the fog. Most people don't know that. They're fooled by the sunlight into thinking they can see what's ahead. But it's the reason they are forever getting lost or falling into ditches or committing matrimony.

Solitude is only a good idea if you have the right people along to share it.

Don't assume that a species is intelligent because it produces intelligent individuals.

You notice, by the way, that we never have a meeting with an alien. It's always an encounter.

Squeej? What kind of name was that for a pilot?

One could not always put safety up front as the prime goal. Do that, and who would ever achieve anything of note?

He told me once about the secret of life. You know what it is?" "I'm not sure what George thinks it is." "It's having lunch with friends.

We could never know who we truly were until we heard the whispers of the stars.

The secret to a successful career in virtually any field is good public relations. Forget results. Forget the facts. Perception is all that matters.

The cultures we can look at had already grasped the essential unity of nature. No board of gods can survive that knowledge.

Certain types of decisions can be safely ignored. Some issues will go away with the passage of time, others will be so slow developing that the decision-makers will depart before the results of their neglect becomes manifest. Which brings us to the environment.

Unfortunately," he said, "we have short memories. Most heroes are forgotten by the next news cycle.

Katie commented that Americans had lost the ability to enjoy themselves. "We watch television," Dave said.

It can provide horrendous weapons to idiots.

Science fiction writers missed the most salient feature of our modern era: the Internet.

Money bought access. But the Second American Revolution had happened, people began taking the Constitution seriously again, and the practice of renting and buying congressmen had been stopped by the simple expedient of getting money out of the campaigns. Contributions of all types became illegal. Campaigns were funded by the voters. You gave money to a politician, it constituted bribery, and you could go to jail.

He's so obsessed with trying to analyze the architecture

I'm prepared to concede that stupidity does not help survival. One must after all understand not to poke a tiger with a stick. But intelligence leads to curiosity, and curiosity has never been a quality that helps one pour his or her genes into the pool. The truth must lie somewhere between. Whatever the reason, it is clearly mediocrity, at best, that lives and breeds.

The term congressional hearing is an oxymoron. No congressional hearing is ever called to gather information. Rather, it is an exercise designed strictly for posturing, by people who have already made up their minds, looking for ammunition to support their positions.

Few people achieve greatness. One reason is that the opportunity, for the vast majority of us, never even shows up. Another is that if it does, it will inevitably look like a long shot. And the temptation invariably is to play it safe.

We range the day And mount the sun. We soar past the rim of the world, And know not caution nor fear. But too soon the night comes. –Sigma Hotel

There are few professions whose primary objective is to advance the cause of humanity rather than simply to make money or accrue power. Among this limited group of humanitarians I would number teachers, nurses, bookstore owners, and bartenders.

There'd been studies over the years supporting the proposition that groups composed exclusively of women usually made intelligent decisions, that exclusively male groups did a bit less well, and that mixed groups did most poorly of all, by a substantial margin. It appeared that, when women were present, testosterone got the upper hand and men took greater risks than they might otherwise. Correspondingly, women in the mixed group tended to revert to roles, becoming more passive, and going along with whatever misjudgment the males might perpetrate.

One SF prediction that I would like very much to see: Get solar collectors launched to beam energy back home, and get away from fossil fuels.

Truth, beaten down, may well rise again. But there's a reason it gets beaten down. Usually we don't like it very much.