Help me remember this scifi quote
June 17, 2013 9:28 PM Subscribe
This is one of those things that's instantly available if you can remember the exact wording, but totally ungooglable if you can't. I am currently arguing in a bar about this exact quote and who it's by.
What I remember: it's by a really famous scientist-author who i am for wine-related reasons blanking on. Someone like Sagan or Feynman. It was the epigraph in some scifi book that I likewise can't remember what it was. What I can remember of the quote:
"Some of us look at the stars because of blah blah blah blah. Some of us are blah blah blah. And some of us are just hoping for someone interesting to talk to/some intelligent conversation."
That's all I can remember. Help!
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
posted by empath at 9:46 PM on June 17, 2013
posted by empath at 9:46 PM on June 17, 2013
Response by poster: It's not Oscar Wilde, it's from the 70s or 80s and yes we are in a bar right now and there is no money but there is the far more valuable prize of getting him to SHUT UP. also I really would just like to know.
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 9:48 PM on June 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 9:48 PM on June 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
There aren't any epigraphs in my copy of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
posted by stebulus at 9:48 PM on June 17, 2013
posted by stebulus at 9:48 PM on June 17, 2013
Mod note: If this question is going to stay open, it needs to be a question and not an extension of a bar fight.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 9:50 PM on June 17, 2013
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 9:50 PM on June 17, 2013
I remember this quote. I just can't find it anywhere. It feels like it's from a movie, or a game, or some other time-based narrative?
[I think it's fine that it's an extension of a bar fight, IMO. Things like this are what give Metafilter character.]
posted by suedehead at 9:53 PM on June 17, 2013 [4 favorites]
[I think it's fine that it's an extension of a bar fight, IMO. Things like this are what give Metafilter character.]
posted by suedehead at 9:53 PM on June 17, 2013 [4 favorites]
So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth - Monty Python
posted by empath at 9:54 PM on June 17, 2013
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth - Monty Python
posted by empath at 9:54 PM on June 17, 2013
There aren't any epigraphs in my copy of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
posted by stebulus
Or in the version scanned by Google books (not to say that the 1st edition didn't have it).
posted by 445supermag at 10:13 PM on June 17, 2013
posted by stebulus
Or in the version scanned by Google books (not to say that the 1st edition didn't have it).
posted by 445supermag at 10:13 PM on June 17, 2013
Sagan's Contact has this passage:
posted by stebulus at 10:23 PM on June 17, 2013
For all the tenure of humans on Earth, the night sky had been a companion and an inspiration. The stars were comforting. They seemed to demonstrate that the heavens were created for the benefit and instruction of humans. This pathetic conceit became the conventional wisdom worldwide. No culture was free of it. Some people found in the skies an aperture to the religious sensibility. Many were awestruck and humbled by the glory and scale of the cosmos. Others were stimulated to the most extravagant flights of fancy.[gb]Not an epigraph, though, and no mention of looking for conversation (though of course that description would fit the main character of the novel).
posted by stebulus at 10:23 PM on June 17, 2013
Pretty sure that was a voice over quote from the movie edition of Contact, but google isn't helpful.
posted by hobo gitano de queretaro at 10:25 PM on June 17, 2013
posted by hobo gitano de queretaro at 10:25 PM on June 17, 2013
I've DEFINITELY read/heard that quote before. The OP has the format correct.
posted by littlesq at 11:16 PM on June 17, 2013
posted by littlesq at 11:16 PM on June 17, 2013
Best answer: Sounds pretty similar to the epigraph of Leviathan in The Illuminatus! Trilogy:
The mutation from terrestrial to interstellar life must be made, because the womb planet itself is going to blow up within a few billion years ... Planet Earth is a stepping stone on our time-trip through the galaxy. Life has to get its seed-self off the planet to survive ...posted by bassooner at 11:51 PM on June 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
There are some among us who are bored with the amniotic level of mentation on this planet and look up in hopes of finding someone entertaining to talk to.
--Timothy Leary, Ph.D., and L. Wayne Brenner, Terra II
Best answer: That's it! Not sure how my brain went from Sagan to Timothy Leary but that is definitely it. Thank you, you are my hero.
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 12:47 AM on June 18, 2013
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 12:47 AM on June 18, 2013
Isaac Asimov story "Nightfall," about the planet where the stars were visible only once in a thousand years. So awesome was the sight that it drove men mad. We who can see the stars every night glance up casually at the cosmos and then quickly down again, searching for a Dairy Queen.
posted by adamvasco at 12:52 AM on June 18, 2013
posted by adamvasco at 12:52 AM on June 18, 2013
« Older If a person is acclaimed, is it OK to say said... | Dell Vostro 1400: Battery not being recognized.... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by shmegegge at 9:30 PM on June 17, 2013 [1 favorite]