Arthur C. Clarke

About 2001 - and other odysseys

If you understand 2001 on the first viewing, we will have failed. 1969

Even though I've seen 2001 dozens of times (and watched the actual filming just outside the Boreham Wood Studio, with the london busses rolling by in the background ) I'm still overwhelmed when Moonwatcher smashes down the weapon that will make him Master of the World. But when I was sitting behind the secretary general, I suddenly realized that right here was the place where we were trying to control what Moonwatcher had started - the four-million-year evolution from bone club to ICBM. And a moment later, another thought struck me with such violence that I was astonished it had never occurred to me before. My God! The monolith and the UN building look exactly the same! I still don't know if that's pure coincidence... - 1986

2001 is often said to be based on (my 1948 short story) 'The Sentinel,' but the two bear much the same relationship as an acorn and an oak tree. It needed a lot more material and some of it came from 'Encounter in the Dawn'... and four other short stories. But most of it was wholly new, and the result of months of brainstorming with Stanley (Kubrick). 1993

2001: A Space Odyssey is about man's past and future life in space. It's about concern with man's hierarchy in the universe, which is probably pretty low. It's about the reactions of humanity to the discovery of higher intelligence in the universe. We set out with the deliberate intention of creating a myth. The Odyssean parallel was in our minds from the beginning, long before the film's title was chosen.

A lot of people have seen religious elements in 2001 and perhaps even more so in the final 3001. When we were making 2001 I commented, 'MGM doesn't know it yet, but they are making the first 10 million dollar religious movie'... I have no religious beliefs at all. The best definition of me is a Crypto-Buddhist.

I've never taken any drugs. But I wouldn't rule out the possiblility that those geniuses who created the end of the movie (2001) did. 1996

Science fiction is the only genuine consciousness expanding drug.

Dr Chandra: All intelligent beings dream. Nobody knows why. - 1968

HAL: I am putting myself to the fullest possible use,
which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. - 1968

HAL: It can only be attributable to human error. - 1968

As our own species is in the process of proving,
one cannot have superior science and inferior morals.
The combination is unstable and self-destroying.

Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe,
and sometimes I think we're not. In either case,
the idea is quite staggering.

Space is what stops everything from happening in the same place.

Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference.
We should all be treated with appropriate respect.

Better to have neighbours we don't like than to be utterly alone.

All explorers are seeking something they have lost. It is seldom that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them greater happiness than the quest. - 1956

I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her.

It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God - but to create him.
I was sure we'd go into space; sure we'd go to the Moon and planets; but I didn't really believe I'd live to see it. Or live to see it finished! That's something I never would have dreamed of: that we would go to the Moon, and abandon it after five years!....You can't make much of a case for man in space until you've got efficient and reliable propulsion systems. Once we've got that, everything else will follow automatically. It only costs about a hundred dollars to go to the Moon - in terms of kilowatt hours, if you were to buy the energy from your friendly local power station. Whereas it costs about a billion dollars the way we've done it....There's no reason why, in the next century, it should cost more to go to the Moon than it costs to fly around the world today. 1993

I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life.
It's just been too intelligent to come here...

It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.

They will have time enough, in those endless aeons,
to attempt all things, and to gather all knowledge...
No Gods imagined by our minds have ever
possessed the powers they will command...
But for all that, they may envy us,
basking in the bright afterglow of creation;
for we knew the universe when it was young.
1962