Space travel - Quotes from Science Fiction

A lot of quotations carefully collected from a very big amount of books and divided by categories.

Have fun reading it, this is really interesting and breathtaking!

If we are to believe certain narrow-minded people - and what else can we call them? - humanity is confined within a circle of Popilius from which there is no escape, condemned to vegetate on this globe, never able to venture into interplanetary space! That's not so! We are going to the moon, we shall go to the planets, we shall travel to the stars just as today we go from Liverpool to New York, easily, rapidly, surely, and the oceans of space will be crossed like the seas of the moon!

- Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon (1865), translated by Walter James Miller (1978)

Dim and wonderful is the vision I have conjured up in my mind of life spreading slowly from this little seed-bed of the solar system throughout the inanimate vastness of sidereal space.

- H. G.Wells, TheWar of theWorlds (1898)

There is a sense of spectral whirling through liquid gulfs of infinity, of dizzying rides through reeling universes on a comet's tail, and of hysterical plunges from the pit to the moon and from the moon back again to the pit, all livened by a cachinnating chorus of the distorted, hilarious elder gods and the green, bat-winged mocking imps of Tartarus.

- H. P. Lovecraft, ''The Call of Cthulhu'' (1928)

Hammond's head spun with their tales of spaceman's life, tales of the vast glooms of cosmic clouds that ships rarely dared enter, of wrecks and castaways in the unexplored fringes of the galaxy, of strange races like the thinking rocks of Rigel and the fish-cities of Arcturus' watery worlds and the unearthly tree-wizards of dark Algol.

- Edmond Hamilton, The Star of Life (1947)

In this universe the night was falling: the shadows were lengthening towards an east that would not know another dawn. But elsewhere the stars were still young and the light of morning lingered - and along the path he once had followed Man would one day go again.

- Arthur C. Clarke, Against the Fall of Night (1948)

Space was vast, the journeys through it long and lonely, landing always a stimulating experience, with its prospect of new life forms to be seen and studied.

- A. E. van Vogt, ''The Monster'' (1948)

''It is good to renew one's wonder,'' said the philosopher. ''Space travel has again made children of us all.''

- Ray Bradbury, epigraph to The Martian Chronicles (1950)

Coming out of space was like coming out of the most beautiful cathedral they had ever seen.

- Ray Bradbury, ''The Fire Balloons'' (1951)

We who were meant to roam the stars go now on foot upon a ravaged earth. But above us those other worlds still hang, and still they beckon. And so is the promise still given. If we make not the mistakes of the Old Ones then shall we know in time more than the winds of this earth and the trails of this earth.

- Andre Norton, Star Man's Son (1952)

The ''romance'' of space - drivel written in the old days.When you're not blasting, you float in a cramped hotbox, crawl through dirty mazes of greasy pipe and cable to tighten a lug, scratch your arms and bark your shins, get sick and choked up because no gravity helps your gullet get the food down. [. . .] ''Did you like horror movies when you were a kid?'' asked the psych. And you'd damn well better answer ''yes,'' if you want to go to space.

- Walter M. Miller, Jr., ''Death of a Spaceman'' (1954)

Fragile Earthmen, venturing out here, go back to your own system! Go back to your little orderly universe, your strict civilization. Stay away from the regions you do not know! Stay away from darkness and monsters!

- Philip K. Dick, Solar Lottery (1955)

The stars will never be won by little minds; we must be big as space itself.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star (1956)

His brain was a bright kaleidoscope and the visions evoked byWilson's words went round in it, and round again until he was dizzy with them. Fantastic, splendid visions. Earth sending out her ships and mourning them and stubbornly sending out more until one of them returned and the Big Step had been made. [. . .] Then the ships going out proud and confident, taking the children of Earth to the empty planets and filling them with life, and after that like strong swimmers leaving the shallows of their youth behind, plunging into the black seas that run cold and tideless across the universe, girdling ten billion stars, until the children of Earth were spread across the galaxy. They were born now under the light of alien suns, on countless alien planets, and they had changed as Quobba and Tammas were changed to suit their environments, but still they were the children of Earth, and space belonged to them.

- Edmond Hamilton, The Star of Life, revised (1959)

''Was it such a good thing to conquer space? We thought it would be, back in the Twentieth Century. But was it?'' He looked out into the blind light and darkness of the universe but there was no answer there for his question. There would never be an answer, for it was not a matter of good or ill. Man could not choose now, he had made his choice long ago when as half-man he had looked up at the stars and coveted them. He would look farther yet with desire, upon galaxies and realms beyond present thinking, and would struggle for them, falling into many a cosmic trap like the one here, and always striving pitifully to snatch individual happiness before he died in that struggle.

- Edmond Hamilton, The Star of Life, revised (1959)

Mankind flung its advance agents ever outward, ever outward. Eventually it flung them out into space, into the colorless, tasteless, weightless sea of outwardness without end. It flung them like stones. These unhappy agents found what had already been found in abundance on Earth - a nightmare of meaninglessness without end. The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.

- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., The Sirens of Titan (1959)

We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham.We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos. [. . .] We have no need of other worlds.We need mirrors.

- Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961), translated by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox (1970)

Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.

- Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961), translated by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox (1970)

In those days, interplanetary voyages were an everyday occurrence, and interstellar travel not uncommon. Rockets took tourists to the wondrous sites of Sirius, or financiers to the famous stock exchanges of Arcturus and Aldebaran.

- Pierre Boulle, Planet of the Apes (1963), translated by Xan Fielding (1963)

I'd spend the whole night just standing there and watching the stars and the planets and the galaxies whirling about the heavens, looking at the universe as though it were a great celestial circus. And I'd say to myself, ''Someday, I'm going out there. Someday I'm going out there and take apart some of those flaming pinwheels and see what they're made of. I'll go farther than anyone has ever gone before, and then farther than that. I'll discover suns and worlds no one has ever known existed, and I'll find out if the universe is round after all, and if it is I'll find out what's on the outside of it.''

- Charles E. Fritch, ''The Castaway'' (1963)

Space . . . the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange, new worlds; to seek out new life, and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before.

- Gene Roddenberry, opening narration, Star Trek (TV series, 1966)

Space . . . the final frontier. These are the continuing voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange, new worlds; to seek out new life forms, and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before.

- Gene Roddenberry, closing narration, Star Trek II: TheWrath of Khan (film, 1982)

Space . . . the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange, new worlds; to seek out new life, and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before.

- Gene Roddenberry, opening narration, Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV series, 1987)

Beyond The rim of the star-light My love Is wand'ring in star-flight I know He'll find in star-clustered reaches Love, Strange love a star woman teaches. I know His journey ends never His star trek Will go on forever. But tell him While hewanders his starry sea Remember, remember me.

- Gene Roddenberry, ''Theme from Star Trek'' (1968)

The all but impossible glory of having walked on the moon, of proving our mind power and our brilliant technology, this cannot ever be dimmed. [. . .] We have hurled ourselves closer to the gods.

- Emil Petaja, ''That Moon Plaque: Comments by Science FictionWriters'' (1969)

It may take endless wars and unbearable population pressure to force-feed a technology to the point where it can cope with space. In the universe, space travel may be the normal birth pangs of an otherwise dying race. A test. Some races pass, some fail.

- Robert A. Heinlein, I Will Fear No Evil (1970)

My descendants are going to surf light-waves in space.

- Katherine MacLean, ''The Missing Man'' (1971)

Our flight must be not only to the stars but into the nature of our own beings. Because it is not merely where we go, to Alpha Centauri or Betelgeuse, but what we are as we make our pilgrimage there. Our natures will be going there, too.

- Philip K. Dick, ''The Android and the Human'' (1972)

We're lost in an out-of-the-way section of deep space and who knows what evil lurks among the stars?

- Carol Emshwiller, ''The Childhood of the Human Hero'' (1973)

We must stop this insane foraging; this conveying of our lunacies from one segment of the solar system to the next; we must, I say, stay on our home planet and work out our problems in the Arena of our birth.

- Barry N. Malzberg, ''Notes Leading Down to the Conquest'' (1973)

We stand undisputed masters of the Solar System and poised on the edge of interstellar space itself, just as they did fifty thousand years ago . . . And so, gentlemen, we inherit the stars. Let us go out, then, and claim our inheritance.We belong to a tradition in which the concept of defeat has no meaning. Today the stars and tomorrow the galaxies. No force exists in the Universe that can stop us.

- James P. Hogan, Inherit the Stars (1977)

Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the Former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich, and on the whole tax free. Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns seeking adventure and reward amongst the furthest reaches of galactic space. In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before and thus was the Empire forged.

- Douglas Adams, ''Fit the Third,'' episode of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series, 1978)

On a dreary Tuesday in March, Mrs. Bagley told her family she was going to Mars.

- KateWilhelm, ''Mrs. Bagley Goes to Mars'' (1978)

The great human summer of time to come, he realized, would be lived out of the cradle, in free space, around the sun in space habitats, and out among the stars.

- George Zebrowski, Macrolife (1979)

[On space travel:] Human DNA spreading out from gravity's steep well like an oilslick.

- William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

She would, mentally, travel a multiplicity of geographies, physical and nonphysical, over mountains, under oceans, even across and among galaxies. Through the flaming peripheries of stars she had passed, and through the cold reaches of a space where the last worlds hung tiny as specks of moisture on the window-panes of her rooms. Endless varieties of creatures came and went on the paths of Medra's cerebral journeys. Creatures of landscape, waterscape, airscape, and of the gaplands between the suns.

- Tanith Lee, ''Medra'' (1984)

Webriding. Flowing through stars, points of flame running through hands that aren't hands, the psychic You bound up in the physical You that's just a pattern sliding along the web, held together and existing only by the strength of will of the webrider. Sailing on evanescent wings of mind through the energy/matter currents of space.

- Jayge Carr, ''Webrider'' (1985)

Spaceflight, therefore, is subversive. If they are fortunate enough to find themselves in Earth orbit, most people, after a little meditation, have similar thoughts. The nations that had instituted spaceflight had done so largely for nationalistic reasons; it was a small irony that almost everyone who entered space received a startling glimpse of a transnational perspective, of the Earth as one world.

- Carl Sagan, Contact (1985)

Gillian Taylor: Don't tell me - you're from outer space! Kirk: No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space.

- Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes, Harve Bennett, and Nicholas Meyer, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (film, 1986)

The conquest of space isn't as easy as the layman might imagine.

- Neal Barrett, Jr., ''Perpetuity Blues'' (1987)

Science is part of a larger human enterprise, and that enterprise includes going to the stars, adapting to other planets, adapting them to us. [. . .] The whole meaning of the universe, its beauty, is contained in the consciousness of intelligent life.We are the consciousness of the universe, and our job is to spread that around, to go look at things, to live everywhere we can.

- Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (1992)

Sooner or later, everyone comes to Babylon 5.

- J. Michael Straczynski, ''The Gathering,'' episode of Babylon 5 (1993)

It was the Dawn of the Third Age of Mankind, ten years after the Earth- Minbari War. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call, home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal . . . all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last, best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5.

- J. Michael Straczynski, opening narration, Babylon 5 (TV series, 1994)

Lewis loved fishing in space. Yes, I know there are no fish in space, but catching fish is not at all the main point of fishing. Ninety percent of the activity is sitting with rod and reel just simply mulling things over. Lewis spent hours in a space suit sitting on top of the Ray with his line dangling, contemplating the sheer beauty of the Universe.

- Eric Idle, The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel (1999)