Time and Again Quotes

“The once all-important thing had been buried by more than fifty years of other all-important matters.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“And the wrench clinched everything.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“We want you to sign a petition,” said Mrs. Jellicoe.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“Adams chuckled. “The evenings are always nice. The Weather boys don’t let it rain until later on, when everyone’s asleep.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“Faith,” said Dr. Raven gently, “is a powerful thing.” “Yes, powerful,” Sutton agreed, “but even in its strength it is our own confession of weakness. Our own admission that we are not strong enough to stand alone, that we must have a staff to lean upon, the expressed hope and conviction that there is some greater power which will lend us aid and guidance.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“For the human race, thought Sutton, cannot even for a moment forget that it is human, cannot achieve the greatness of humility that will unquestioningly accord equality.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“And here and there a human who saw the rightness of the proposition that Man could not, by mere self-assertion, be a special being; understanding that it was his greater glory to take his place among the other things of life, as a simple thing of life, as a form of life that could lead and teach and be a friend rather than a thing that conquered and ruled and stood as one apart.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“Slowly, Adams put away the mento-cap, reached out an almost reluctant hand and snapped up a tumbler. Alice answered. “Send me in the Asher Sutton file.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“All things fear Man. Man has made all things to fear him.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“Broken dreams are bad enough. But the dream that has no hope … the dream that is doomed long before it’s broken, that’s the worst of all.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“—Supongamos que ha viajado usted en el tiempo, hacia el pasado. ¿Para qué?
—Para decirle a usted que Sutton regresará. [...] Cuando Sutton regrese —dijo el forastero—, tienen que matarle.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“She folded fat hands over a plump stomach and did her best to beam at him. The effect of the beam was spoiled by the wispy hair that straggled out from beneath her dowdy hat.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“We’d like to talk to you, sir, if you don’t mind,” said the woman of the trio. “You see, we’re a sort of delegation.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“The man was a somewhat seedy character. He might not actually have slept in his clothes, although the first impression was that he had. He clutched a threadbare cap with stubby, grimed fingers. The fingernails were rimmed with the blue of dirt.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“Thousands of listeners listening in on the random thoughts of random time and space listening in for clues, for hints, for leads.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“Sutton is a good man.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“The name is Asher Sutton.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“An android voice answered, “It’s Mr. Thorne, sir, on the mentophone from Andrelon.” “Thank you, Alice,” Adams said.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“Good man, Thorne, thought Adams.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“But five men had died, three humans and two androids, beside a river that flowed on Aldebaran XII, just a few short miles from Andrelon, the”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“Man was spread thin throughout the galaxy. A lone man here, a handful there. Slim blobs of bone and brain and muscle to hold a galaxy in check. Slight shoulders to hold up the cloak of human greatness spread across the light-years. For Man had flown too fast, had driven far beyond his physical capacity.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“You say a thing so often and so well that after a time everyone believes it. Even, finally, yourself.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“Man could not, by mere self-assertion, be a special being; understanding that it was his greater glory to take his place among the other things of life, as a simple thing of life, as a form of life that could lead and teach and be a friend rather than a thing that conquered and ruled and stood as one apart.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“Bridgeport, Wis.
July 11, 1987

I write this letter to myself, so that the postmark may prove beyond controversy the day and year that it was written, and I shall not open it but shall place it among my effects against the day when someone, a member of my own family, God willing, may open it and read. And reading, know the thing that I believe and think, but dare not say while I am still alive, lest someone call me touched.

For I have not long to live. I have lasted more than a man’s average allotted span, and while I still am hale and hearty, I know full well the hand of time, while it may miss a man at one reaping, will get him at the next.

I have no morbid fear of death, nor any sentimental wish to gain the brief immortality that a thought accorded me after I am dead may give me, for the thought itself will be a fleeting one and the one who holds it himself will not have too many years of life, for the years of man are short . . . far too short for any perfect understanding of any of the problems that a lifetime poses.

While it is more than likely that this letter will be read by my immediate descendants, who are well acquainted with me, I am still aware that through some vagary of fate it may fall yet unopened into the hands of someone many years after I am long forgotten, or even into the hands of strangers.

Feeling that the circumstance which I have to tell is of more than ordinary interest, even at the risk of reporting something which may be well known to the one who reads this letter, I shall here include some of the basic facts about myself and my locality and situation.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“Sutton sensed resurrection and he fought against it, for death was so comfortable. Like a soft, warm bed. And resurrection was a strident, insistent, maddening alarm clock that thrilled across the predawn chill of a dreadful, frowzy room. Dreadful with its life and its bare reality and its sharp, sickening reminder that one must get up and walk into reality again.

But this is not the first time. No, indeed, said Sutton. This is not the first time that I died and came to life again. For I did it once before and that time I was dead for a long, long time.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again

“It takes so long to figure things out, Sutton told himself.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again