Top 86 Jack McDevitt Quotes

#1. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #31155
#2. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #76451
#3. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #104646
#4. Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #105844
#5. But, come to think of it, there was no need to wait. Time travelers don't have to wait for anybody.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #114684
#6. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #114942
#7. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #159852
#8. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #190614
#9. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #226772
#10. Science fiction writers missed the most salient feature of our modern era: the Internet.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #241341
#11. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #273245
#12. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #274565
#13. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #325378
#14. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #340895
#15. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #343461
#16. Live from Babylon and Ur, From Athens and Alexandria and Rome, The voices of a thousand generations, Press us, Urge us on-.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #356869
#17. An ocean with a single shore gets little traffic.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #364730
#18. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #378174
#19. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #406725
#20. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #414603
#21. The truth is that when your people don't tell you what you need to know, it's a failure of leadership.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #418673
#22. If you're paying attention to your wardrobe, Rudy believed, your mind isn't sufficiently occupied.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #424262
#23. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #440388
#24. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #452074
#25. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #502809
#26. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #507759
#27. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #531165
#28. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #537282
#29. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #579013
#30. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #589463
#31. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #644810
#32. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #678408
#33. Boundaries have no existence save on charts or in small minds. Nature does not draw lines.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #686139
#34. Squeej? What kind of name was that for a pilot?

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #790114
#35. Drink deep the cup of life; take it's dark wine into your soul. For it passes round the table only once.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #806831
#36. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #808134
#37. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #812008
#38. There is nothing that overwhelms the senses quite like an unwelcome silence.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #817375
#39. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #822409
#40. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #839551
#41. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #860974
#42. The cultures we can look at had already grasped the essential unity of nature. No board of gods can survive that knowledge.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #870408
#43. Unfortunately," he said, "we have short memories. Most heroes are forgotten by the next news cycle.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #885895
#44. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #934701
#45. If you want creative and successful children, resign yourself to jousting with rebels.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #940485
#46. Those whose tastes run to personal power [can] never be trusted to act save in the pursuit of their own ambition.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #958596
#47. I've tried to quit writing several times, but I enjoy it too much.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #961184
#48. If you're right, and nobody really cares what's out there, I wonder whether we're even worth saving.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1012460
#49. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1050508
#50. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1053278
#51. One could not always put safety up front as the prime goal. Do that, and who would ever achieve anything of note?

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1067106
#52. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1100634
#53. Decisions are always made with insufficient information. If you really knew what was going on, the decision would make itself.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1141682
#54. Fear the assassin who waits in the lonely passages of the heart.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1142384
#55. If you want data to survive, carve it in rock.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1175878
#56. All of the important things ... will turn out to be universally shared. It's why there will be no true aliens.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1203476
#57. We live along the shores of night,
At the edge of the eternal sea.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1218239
#58. Don't assume that a species is intelligent because it produces intelligent individuals.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1223911
#59. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1233308
#60. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1237340
#61. It can provide horrendous weapons to idiots.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1243979
#62. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1270343
#63. Intelligence is like pornography. I can't define it, but I know if when I see it.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1372485
#64. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1375947
#65. A friend is a second self.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1376974
#66. I was thinking how much trouble people get into because they can't keep their mouths shut.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1401088
#67. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1442817
#68. Katie commented that Americans had lost the ability to enjoy themselves. "We watch television," Dave said.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1463744
#69. Talking with most people usually involves a search for truth. Talking with congressmen is strictly special effects.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1466962
#70. Solitude is only a good idea if you have the right people along to share it.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1560864
#71. The queen of virtues is the recognition of one's own flaws.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1621559
#72. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1623562
#73. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1626021
#74. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1633479
#75. Sometimes the cost of integrity is the loss of a friend.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1651573
#76. So long as you believe in some truth you do not believe in yourself. You are a servant. A man of faith.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1658403
#77. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1700128
#78. The measure of a civilization is in the courage, not of its soldiers, but of its bystanders.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1704089
#79. She wondered whether the world's problems might be solved by access to the stars. Or simply exported.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1710417
#80. How does it happen that the most intractable types always rise to the top?

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1711008
#81. We could never know who we truly were until we heard the whispers of the stars.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1712866
#82. He's so obsessed with trying to analyze the architecture

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1713397
#83. You notice, by the way, that we never have a meeting with an alien. It's always an encounter.

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1750582
#84. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1766076
#85. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1817418
#86. 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

Jack McDevitt Quotes #1838332

Famous Authors

Popular Topics

Scroll to Top