Science fiction is very well suited to asking philosophical questions; questions about the nature of reality, what it means to be human, how do we know the things that we think we know.
The prospect of living without interference, living in a world where windfalls and misfortunes were never by design, held no terror for him.
Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.
The hush of the night sky is the silence of a graveyard.
I would have liked to experience more of the heptapods’ worldview, to feel the way they feel. Then, perhaps I could immerse myself fully in the necessity of events, as the must, instead of merely wading in its surf for the rest of my life.
When Arecibo is not listening to anything else, it hears the voice of creation.
What I’ll think is that you are clearly, maddeningly not me. It will remind me, again, that you won’t be a clone of me; you can be wonderful, a daily delight, but you won’t be someone I could have created by myself.
Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.
From the beginning I knew my destination, and I chose my route accordingly. But am I working toward an extreme of joy, or of pain? Will I achieve a minimum, or a maximum?
I knew it was foolhardy; men of experience say, “Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity,
Like physical events with their causal and teleological interpretations, every linguistic event had two possible interpretations: as a transmission of information and as the realization of a plan.