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Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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If you want creative and successful children, resign yourself to jousting with rebels. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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You notice, by the way, that we never have a meeting with an alien. It's always an encounter. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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But, come to think of it, there was no need to wait. Time travelers don't have to wait for anybody. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Live from Babylon and Ur, From Athens and Alexandria and Rome, The voices of a thousand generations, Press us, Urge us on-. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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My father used to take me to the movies on Saturdays. In 1940, when I was four years old, we encountered 'Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe.' I loved it. Especially the rocket ship, which I later realized had no airlock and no washroom. But they managed to get to Mongo with it. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Solitude is only a good idea if you have the right people along to share it. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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He had to raise his voice to be heard over the wind. 'That Might be our future in that box.'
'The future is ours to take, Jack we don't need anybody to give it to us.' Walker looked out through the windows at the lake. It was immense. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Unfortunately," he said, "we have short memories. Most heroes are forgotten by the next news cycle. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Thanks to the comic book publishers. Batman and Captain Marvel were responsible for my learning to read at least a year before I showed up at school. They got me interested in writing. Started my first novel at about eight. The title: 'The Canals of Mars.' -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Squeej? What kind of name was that for a pilot? -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Technological civilizations don't last long. You're all right until you get a printing press. Then a race starts between technology and common sense. And maybe technology always wins. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Boundaries have no existence save on charts or in small minds. Nature does not draw lines. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Fear the assassin who waits in the lonely passages of the heart. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Sometimes the cost of integrity is the loss of a friend. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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I had never realized that so much communication was non-verbal. That language was a kind of refinement of information passed by other means. We discovered that, with the most limited vocabulary, a half dozen words, you could still cover a lot of ground. And eventually, Belle came back. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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There's not much to be said for sightseeing. You go somewhere that has a waterfall. You have a beer, watch the water go over the edge, and move on. Tours are all the same. In the end, the only thing that matters is the beer. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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We are better than our culture. Load us down with prejudice, equip us with indifference, and we will nevertheless, at the critical moment, cast the nonsense aside and find our true selves. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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There is no justice. There are occasional acts of vengeance, or regret, but there's no real justice. In the natural scheme of things, it is not possible. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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One could not always put safety up front as the prime goal. Do that, and who would ever achieve anything of note? -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Katie commented that Americans had lost the ability to enjoy themselves. "We watch television," Dave said. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Don't assume that a species is intelligent because it produces intelligent individuals. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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A friend is a second self. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Faith is conviction without evidence, and sometimes even in the face of contrary evidence. In some quarters, this quality is perceived as a virtue. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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If you're paying attention to your wardrobe, Rudy believed, your mind isn't sufficiently occupied. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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There is nothing that overwhelms the senses quite like an unwelcome silence. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Intelligence is like pornography. I can't define it, but I know if when I see it. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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The uplifters are forever running around telling blockheads they would do better if they would believe in themselves. But they already do. That is why they are blockheads. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Somewhere we taught ourselves that our opinions are more significant than the facts. And somehow we get our egos and our opinions and Truth all mixed up in a single package, so that when something does challenge one of the notions to which we subscribe, we react as if it challenges us. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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When I was teaching English and trying to get kids passionate about reading, the most effective weapon I had was 'The Martian Chronicles.' -- Jack Mcdevitt
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If you're right, and nobody really cares what's out there, I wonder whether we're even worth saving. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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The problem is that too often the only people who can act don't want change. Power doesn't so much corrupt as it breeds conservatism. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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It is not faith per se that creates the problem; it is conviction, the notion that one cannot be wrong, that opposing views are necessarily invalid and may even be intolerable. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Drink deep the cup of life; take it's dark wine into your soul. For it passes round the table only once. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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There were serious environmental problems left over from the Industrial Age, and the deterioration of the global climate seemed to coincide with political leaders who grew increasingly ruthless. The worst of these was Marko III, known to his American subjects as The Magnificent. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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The home world exercises its siren call over us all. No matter how far we wander, or how long we are gone, it waits patiently. And when we return to it, as we must, it sings to us. We came out of its forests, waded ashore from its seas. It is in our blood, for good or ill. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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I was once invited to attend a private dinner for Senator John F. Kennedy. But it was a Saturday evening, and I passed. Had better things to do. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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It can provide horrendous weapons to idiots. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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The secret to a successful career in virtually any field is good public relations. Forget results. Forget the facts. Perception is all that matters. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Of course, they (i. e., demons) had always been observed with some regularity, but that could usually be ascribed to an overabundance of piety or wine or imagination. Take your pick. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Idiots are not responsible for what they do. The real guilt falls on rational people who sit on their hands while morons run wild. You can opt out if you want to. Play it safe. But if you do, don't complain when the roof comes down. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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So long as you believe in some truth you do not believe in yourself. You are a servant. A man of faith. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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How does it happen that the most intractable types always rise to the top? -- Jack Mcdevitt
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We live along the shores of night,
At the edge of the eternal sea. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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! -- Jack Mcdevitt
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So we have progressed to the point where we can move politicians around faster than light. I'm not sure I see the advantage. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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The truth is that when your people don't tell you what you need to know, it's a failure of leadership. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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The cultures we can look at had already grasped the essential unity of nature. No board of gods can survive that knowledge. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Talking with most people usually involves a search for truth. Talking with congressmen is strictly special effects. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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We could never know who we truly were until we heard the whispers of the stars. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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If you want data to survive, carve it in rock. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Science fiction writers missed the most salient feature of our modern era: the Internet. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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An ocean with a single shore gets little traffic. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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The Peacekeepers had a tradition that every problem had a solution. It was a nice slogan. Wasn't true, but it sounded good. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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I was thinking how much trouble people get into because they can't keep their mouths shut. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Universal deities ... never seem to smile. Not in any culture. What's the point of having omnipotence if you don't enjoy it? -- Jack Mcdevitt
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She wondered whether the world's problems might be solved by access to the stars. Or simply exported. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Those whose tastes run to personal power [can] never be trusted to act save in the pursuit of their own ambition. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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He's so obsessed with trying to analyze the architecture -- Jack Mcdevitt
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The queen of virtues is the recognition of one's own flaws. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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I've tried to quit writing several times, but I enjoy it too much. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Truth, beaten down, may well rise again. But there's a reason it gets beaten down. Usually we don't like it very much. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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All of the important things ... will turn out to be universally shared. It's why there will be no true aliens. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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Decisions are always made with insufficient information. If you really knew what was going on, the decision would make itself. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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The measure of a civilization is in the courage, not of its soldiers, but of its bystanders. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt
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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. -- Jack Mcdevitt