# Quote — Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

> When he tired of official reports, Floyd would plug his foolscap-sized News pad into the ship's information circuit. One by one he would conjure up the world's major electronic papers…He sometimes wondered if the News pad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man's quest for perfect communications. Here he was, far out in space, speeding away from Earth at thousands of miles an hour, yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased. (That very word "newspaper," of course, was an anachronistic hangover into the age of electronics.) It was hard to imagine how the system could be improved or made more convenient. But sooner or later, Floyd guessed, it would pass away, to be replaced by something as unimaginable as the News pad itself would have been to Caxton or Gutenberg.

- Author: [Arthur C. Clarke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke.md)
- Book: [2001: A Space Odyssey](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/2001-a-space-odyssey.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(novel)#II._TMA-1) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/2001-a-space-odyssey/when-he-tired

## More from this book

> Could any technology, no matter how advanced, bridge the awful gulf what lay between the Solar System and the nearest alien sun? Many scientists flatly denied the possibility.
>
> A vocal minority refused to agree. Even if it took centuries to travel from star to star, they contended, this might be no obstacle to sufficiently determined explorers…In any event, why should one assume that all intelligent species were as short-lived as Man? There might be creatures in the universe to whom a thousand-year voyage would present nothing worse than slight boredom.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/2001-a-space-odyssey/could-any-technology.md)

> Fifty years ago, Bowman would have been considered a specialist in applied astronomy, cybernetics, and space propulsion systems — yet he was prone to deny, with genuine indignation, that he was a specialist at all. Bowman had never found it possible to focus his interest exclusively on any subject; despite the dark warnings of his instructors, he had insisted on taking his Master's degree in General Astronautics — a course with a vague and woolly syllabus, designed for those whose IQs were in the low 130s and who would never reach the top ranks of their profession.
>
> His decision had been right; that very refusal to specialize had made him uniquely qualified for his present task.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/2001-a-space-odyssey/fifty-years-ago.md)

> Although Bowman was nominal Captain on this phase of the mission, no outside observer could have deduced the fact. He and Poole switched roles, rank, and responsibilities completely every twelve hours. This kept them both at peak training, minimized the chances of friction, and helped toward the goal of 100 percent redundancy.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/2001-a-space-odyssey/although-bowman-was.md)