classic science fiction lines

Subject: classic science fiction lines
From: Peter T.
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 03:46 PM

Oh, why not, it's Friday. From "The Day The Earth Stood Still":

"I'm worried, worried about what Gort might do. If anything should happen to me, you must go to Gort, and you must say to him: Klaatu verada nictu."

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: lamarca
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 03:55 PM

From "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur C. Clarke:

"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."

Click here for an on-line copy of the short story, which was one of the inspirations for Bob Zentz's "When All Thy Names Are One" (see - it's even folk-music related - sortof...)

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: X
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 03:58 PM

...and God said, "Let there be light."

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 03:59 PM

The word classic in such a context, is so vague and overused by pop culture as to render it nearly meaningless...

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: GUEST,Wesley
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 04:07 PM

From "The Thing" with James Arness - "Listen everyone - wstch the skies"

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Sorcha
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 04:18 PM

"Beam me up Scotty"
"WARP 10!!"

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 04:35 PM

Sorry, but my sci-fi runs only to Mel Brooks' "Spaceballs"

"Why didn't somebody tell me my butt was this big?"

"What's the matter Colonel Sanndurz? Chicken?"

"They've gone to plaid."

Spaw

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Burke
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 04:58 PM

He didn't invent it, but I think Heinlein popularized: TANSTAAFL.

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Amergin
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 05:06 PM

don' t panic...

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Edain
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 05:12 PM

"Good morning Dave"

Does discworld count? anyways

"+++Divide by cucumber error. Please re-install universe and re-boot+++

Hmmm... Blake's 7

Villa - "I've just invented a new stratagy, it's called running away.." --- Cally - "Where I'm from we have a saying, a man who trusts can never be betrayed, only misguided" Avon - "Life expectancy must be short for your people"

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: voyager
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 05:21 PM

Cyberspace.
A consensual hallucination experience daily by billions
of legitimate oerators, in every antion, by children,
being taught mathematical concepts...A graphical representation
of data abstracted from the banks of every computer
in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light
ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data
Like city lights, receding...

Neuromancer
William Gibson

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 05:39 PM

If only cyberspace was half as interesting as William Gibson envisioned when he coined the term...

He's also the guy who best defined cyberspce... It's where the bank keeps your money...

Too bad his older stuff ages so quickly...

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Gareth
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 06:18 PM

"If this goes on !" - Henlien

" Think of it as evolution in practice" Pournell & Niven

Gareth

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: lamarca
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 06:28 PM

One of my co-workers used to have his Macintosh set so that instead of a beep or chime or quack when you did something of which the computer disapproved, Hal's voice would come out of the speaker saying "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that..."

I wish I could find that sound file again for my more modern Mac G4...

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 06:53 PM

lamarca... I have that and a collection of other sound files from Hal... If they work on Mac's I have no idea...

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Noreen
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 07:05 PM

Ford Prefect: "...unpleasantly like being drunk."

Arthur Dent: "There's nothing unpleasant about being drunk?!"

Ford Prefect: "...ask a glass of water..."

pace Douglas Adams

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Art Thieme
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 07:05 PM

This first quote is from me (I think):

"History repeats; it just costs twice as much every time around."

From the original Invasion Of The Body Snatchers":

"I fell asleep--and it happened."

As quoted by George R. Stewart in his fine novel Earth Abides. This from W.M. Stanley in Chemical And Engineering News--Dec. 22, 1947:

"If a killing type of virus strain should suddenly arise by mutation it could, because of the rapid transportation in which we indulge nowadays, be carried to the corners of the earth and cause the deaths of millions of people."

(Art Thieme)

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 07:08 PM

"Any paradox can be paradoctored" -- Heinlein

"3-2-1- Blast Off!!!!!" -- Captain Video reruns

" I think its trying to communicate" -- 213 corny Sci Fi films.

"My God!! It's.....ALIVE!!!" --Ibid

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Madam Gashee
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 07:10 PM

Slartibartfast likes the fiddly bits! Douglas Adams

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Gareth
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 07:14 PM

It's life Jim, but not a we know it.

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Crane Driver
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 07:29 PM

Violence is the last resort of the incompetent - Asimov

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: AliUK
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 07:32 PM

-Live long and prosper- cant get more classic than that!

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 07:45 PM

"Space is BIG.

REALLY big.

Youmay think its a long walk to the Post Office, but that's just peanuts to Space...."

The Book.

Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy.

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Mike Byers
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 09:31 PM

From a number of very bad SF movies: "There are things, professor, that man was not meant to know." I've been looking for a list of these things for several years, so I can be sure not to know them...

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Robin2
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 09:40 PM

"Elvis is not dead, he just went home"
Men In Black

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: SINSULL
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 09:56 PM

"Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor not a (fill in the blank).

From King Kong: "The airplanes got him." "Oh no. It was Beauty who killed the beast."

And done best when out of sync with the film:"Godzirra! AHHHHHH!"

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 10:00 PM

"Monsters . . . Monsters from the Id!"

Forbidden Planet

"Ice Nine"

Kurt Vonnegut

"You see, Doctor, Science has overcome time and space... but Harvey has not only overcome time and space, but any objections!"

Harvey

: "Gentlemen! This is the War Room!"

Dr. Strangelove

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: raredance
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 11:37 PM

I've discovered cold fusion

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: DonMeixner
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 11:43 PM

"This may be the beginning of a biblical prophesy come true" Edmund Gwen in "Them"

"Unk!.... Unk, Unk!" Velociraptor one to Velociraptor two as they break into the kitchen in Jurassic Park.

Don

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: rangeroger
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 11:53 PM

Thou Art God

Grok

Michael Smith- Stranger in a Strange Land

There does seem to be lot of Heinlein qoutes here.

rr

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Crane Driver
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 06:57 AM

rangeroger - there's a Henlien quote as well - guess no-one can spell Doc Smith

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: John P
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 09:05 AM

"He's dead, Jim"

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: John P
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 09:06 AM

"Earl Grey, hot."

"Make it so."

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: John P
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 09:08 AM

The world's shortest science fiction novel:

She smiled, and cast her eyes upon me. They bounced.

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: JudeL
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 09:43 AM

Ford Prefect: "How do you feel?"

Arthur Dent: "Like a military academy - bits of me keep passing out"
(Also from HHGTTG)

"FIRE AT WILL" - I always felt sort of sorry for poor Will

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Firecat
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 09:57 AM

I love the line out of Doctor Who "Remembrance of the Daleks"where the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) is trying to get Davros not to use the hand of Omega but Davros is going through all that "Daleks are the supreme beings of the Universe" stuff. Here goes:-

Davros: The Daleks will become the Lords of Time! We will become...

Doctor: (Interrupting) All powerful! Crush the lesser races! Conquer the galaxy! Unimaginable power! Unlimited rice pudding! Etcetera! Etcetera!

Davros: Do not mock me, Doctor! I can destroy you!

Doctor: (sarcastically) Oh, wonderful! What power! What brilliance! You may be able to conquer the odd planet, enslave the occasional culture, but it still doesn't detract from the basic fundamental truth of your own ignorance!!

I love that!

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Willa
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 10:02 AM

'There have scarcely been men for twenty thosand years-and there has been life for twenty millions...As time goes on-perhaps-men will be wiser...Wiser...' H.G.Wells A Story of Things to Come

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 11:07 AM

From Heinlein:

"Love is that condition in which another person's happiness is essential to your own."

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 12:26 PM

He's dead, Jim" "But that's impossible"

I love the WWW!

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 12:28 PM

and Hal9000 I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 12:31 PM

rich r - You are going to have to prove that!

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: GUEST,chuck
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 12:55 PM

Paraphrased from "Dark Star:"

"Don't give me all that 90% probablility of intelligent life crap. I want something I can blow up!"

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: GUEST,Nick
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 12:58 PM

Open the pod bay doors Hal... Im sorry Dave but I cant do that

I'm just an old country doctor, not a moon shuttle conductor.

(From Conan the Barbarian, a stretch I know but...) Two or three years ago they were just another snake cult, now their temples are everywhere!

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 03:25 PM

He was the last man on Earth. Someone knocked on the door.

Can't remember what that's from, but I read it when I was a kid.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 07:55 PM

Robomatic, I think it was: "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"

I've always liked two lines from "The Blob" (which introduced a new actor, Steven McQueen): "It must have devoured the old man completely." And, after they blasted the blob with top-of-the-line superpowerful weaponry: "It didn't work."

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 08:50 PM

Not a true "line from the series" (as quoted by John P above), but my favorite T-shirt reads:

"He's dead, Jim... You take his tri-corder, I'll get his wallet."

Lin

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 09:22 PM

'This is the voice of the Mysterons -we know you can here us earth people ...' but the classic has to be
'We come in peace,earthlings'

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: Philibuster
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 09:23 PM

Come on folks, no Dan Simmons yet?

"I tried to rediscover the voice of some of the Ancients," I said, suddenly shy.
"You succeeded brilliantly."
"The Heaven's Gate Interlude is still rough," I said.
"It's about loneliness," I said.
"It is loneliness."
"Do you think it's ready?" I asked.
"It's perfect. . . a masterpiece."
"Do you think it'll sell?" I asked.
"No fucking way."

"Approaching rasberry jam speed."
That is to say, if the containment fields failed for a microsecond, all that would be left of us would be a thin lair of rasberry jam.

"Ship, shut the hell up."

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 09:36 PM

Not exactly science fiction, since it's really good science (and really not even dirty) is the classic:

Black holes have no hair.

Commonly attributed to Feynman, since he used it in a lecture ca. 1965, although it was frequently found inscribed (presumedly by smirking sophomores) on restroom walls at MIT in the 1957-59 era.

Subject: RE: classic science fiction lines
From: GUEST,chuck
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 09:40 PM

With apologies to the winner of the Bulwer-Lytton prize for bad prose (well, he apologized to us after he wrot this):

" The face of the forbidden planet was pock-marked and green-- kind of like the way cottage cheese gets when you leave it in the carton,long after the date you're supposed to open it on."