Jack McDevitt quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Jack McDevitt on Wise Famous Quotes.

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

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!

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

It can provide horrendous weapons to idiots.

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

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

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

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.

A friend is a second self.

We live along the shores of night,
At the edge of the eternal sea.

An ocean with a single shore gets little traffic.

Decisions are always made with insufficient information. If you really knew what was going on, the decision would make itself.

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

I've tried to quit writing several times, but I enjoy it too much.

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

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

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

Intelligence is like pornography. I can't define it, but I know if when I see it.

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

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

If you're right, and nobody really cares what's out there, I wonder whether we're even worth saving.

Those whose tastes run to personal power [can] never be trusted to act save in the pursuit of their own ambition.

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

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

If you're paying attention to your wardrobe, Rudy believed, your mind isn't sufficiently occupied.

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

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

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

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

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

So we have progressed to the point where we can move politicians around faster than light. I'm not sure I see the advantage.

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

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

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

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.

I was thinking how much trouble people get into because they can't keep their mouths shut.

How does it happen that the most intractable types always rise to the top?

He's so obsessed with trying to analyze the architecture

She wondered whether the world's problems might be solved by access to the stars. Or simply exported.

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