A Fall Of Moondust Quotes
"To be the skipper of the only boat on the Moon was a distinction that Pat Harris enjoyed."
"The brilliant, blue-green light of the mother world flooded this strange land with a cold radiance."
"It was a sea of dust, not of water, and therefore it was alien to all the experience of men; therefore, also, it fascinated and attracted them."
"Nothing could move upon its treacherous surface except the small, two-man dust-skis — and Selene herself."
"When he used that word, no one would mistake him for the skipper of a spaceship."
"The eye has no way of judging distances when there is nothing for it to focus upon."
"It divides the Universe in twain; for ever and ever, it rolls onward beneath the stars…"
"The ubiquitous dust had flooded into it, working its way up the valley age after age."
"Here was the same sheltered stillness, the same sense of unknown depths beneath the boat."
"There could be no ghosts upon a world that had never known life."
"For a scientist, that was a serious, almost an unforgivable, lapse, and Tom felt very angry with himself."
"It was very odd — almost as if Selene had emerged from the mountains, and then taken off like a spaceship."
"Though he pretended that the opinion of others meant nothing to him, Tom was terrified of making a fool of himself."
"If he said nothing, no one would ever know, but all his life he would be haunted by doubts."
"There's no way of preparing them, and it's too warm in the cabin already."
"The space of the prairie was just as great, therefore, to the men who challenged it as the space of the solar system is to us."
"With the opening up of the solar system in the 1970's, the earth-based frontier of the American West seemed so ludicrously tiny."
"He talks to me, thought Lawrence, as if I'm a retarded child, who has to have everything explained to him in words of one syllable."
"Don't worry; that's merely the four-hour reserve. You won't be using it at all."
"The clamshell doors pivoted open. There was a faint tug of ghostly fingers as the last vestige of air gushed out."
"Sorry", replied Spenser, who had learned long ago when to apologize quickly.
"Here they are", said the Communications Officer suddenly. "Two minutes ahead of time. Something's happened."
"I've hit something", said Lawrence tersely, "but I can't tell what it is."
"Nothing there. Take me back in the other direction."
"Lawrence switched his receiver to the MOONCRASH band — and there she was, yelling at the top of her robot voice."
"This is Duster One", he answered. "C. E. E. speaking. I'm fifteen meters above you. Are you all O. K.? Over."
"Listening to them, indeed, one might almost have imagined that they were holding some drunken celebration."
"It was these interludes that made life worth living, and Spenser knew how to make the most of them."
"Not until I've finished with you", corrected Spenser, grabbing Tom and aiming him in the direction of the hotel.
"It's my hunch that we can't do anything effective in ninety hours; we'll have to build special equipment, and that always takes time."
"It was a career which, he knew well, might soon terminate abruptly."
"The struggle against the forces of Nature was so fierce that no energy was left for gracious living."
"I'm damned if I know what's happened, but I'm sure of this — we're not done for yet, by several light-years."
"For an amateur, Wilfred George Radley, I'd like to congratulate you. It's been a fine chase."
"In your whole lifetime, you might need it only once. But that was the point. You would really need it then."
"We're still in very good spirits. Of course, we had a bad shock after that second cave-in, when we lost contact with you — but now we're sure you'll soon have us out."
"They can be utterly ruthless when it's necessary."
"The forces of good and evil are at war in the Universe, just as they are on Earth."
"We've got to sit here and wait until Lawrence starts knocking on the roof again."
"It's a pretty problem. The lower end of the caisson's wide open to the dust, because it's resting against Selene at only one point."
"If I want to come up in a hurry, all of you pull on the rope ladder together."
"Even this gravity field could accelerate one to a lethal speed in less than ten seconds."
"Few achievements in all his life had ever given him such a sense of satisfaction."
"Real love was a perfect balance of desire and tenderness."
"No one who had been aboard Selene I could fail to be marked by the experience, in most cases for the better."
"The thought exhilarated and terrified him, but he knew he had to go."
"He loved the Moon, but it had tried to kill him: never again could he be wholly at ease out upon its open surface."
"With his own world, from now on, there could never be more than an armed neutrality."
"The next time he saw them, they would be a million times brighter."