Frank Belknap Long

Name: The Man from Time
Author: Frank Belknap Long

The Man from Time

Summary

“The Man from Time”, is a work by Frank Belknap Long. It explores elements such as Moonson, Mike and Time Observatory.

Quotes from The Man from Time (Frank Belknap Long)

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ Watching a green land in the dying golden sunlight of an age lost to human memory could restore a man's strength of purpose by its serenity alone. But even an age of war and pestilence could be observed without torment from behind the protective shields of the Time Machine. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ It must be bad, Moonson thought. It must be bad if I can't control the trembling of my hands, the pounding of the blood at my temples. I am like a child shut up alone in the dark, hearing rats scurrying in a closet thick with cobwebs and the tapping of a blind man's cane on a deserted street at midnight. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ She had never seemed more precious to him and for an instant he could feel his fear lessening a little. But it came back and was worse than before. It was like an old pain returning at an unexpected moment to chill a man with the sickening reminder that all joy must end. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ Warp space with a rapidly moving object, move away from the observer with the speed of light—and the whole of human history assumed the firm contours of a landscape in space. Time and space merged and became one. And a man in an intricately-equipped Time Observatory could revisit the past as easily as he could travel across the great curve of the universe to the farthest planet of the farthest star. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ Had the human race really advanced so much? Time had been conquered but no man was yet wise enough to heal himself if a stark, unreasoning fear took possession of his mind and heart, giving him no peace.
Moonson lowered his eyes, saw that Rutella was watching him in the manner of a shy woman not wishing to break in too abruptly on the thoughts of a stranger. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ The loneliness, the utter desolation of space, was too much for a human mind to endure."
She smiled her love. "We're going back. We'll face it together and we'll conquer it together. You won't be alone now. Darling, don't you see—it's because you aren't a clod, because you're sensitive and imaginative that you experience fear. It's not anything to be ashamed of. You were simply the first man on Earth to develop a new and completely different kind of fear—Time Fear."
Moonson put out his hand and gently touched his wife's hair. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ Don't ever be a square! Cuddle up to me, let yourself go! When you're dancing with one girl you should never look at another! Don't you know that, Johnny!
Sure I know it, Doll! But did I ever claim I wasn't human?
Darl, doll, doll baby! Look all you want to! But if you ever dare—
Moonson found himself relaxing a little. Dancing in all ages was closely allied to love-making, but it was pursued here with a careless rapture which he found creatively stimulating. People came here not only to dance but to eat, and the thoughts of the dancers implied that there was nothing stylized about a tavern. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ Moonson had tried telling himself that a man could conquer fear if he could but once summon the courage to laugh at all the sins that ever were, and do as he damned well pleased. An ancient phrase that—damned well. It went clear back to the Elizabethan Age, and Moonson had tried picturing himself as an Elizabethan man with a ruffle at his throat and a rapier in his clasp, brawling lustily in a tavern. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ He was cruelly afraid most of the time.
Moonson listened to the writer's thoughts in heart-stricken silence—thoughts so tragic they seemed out of keeping with the natural and beautiful rhythms of his speech. He had never imagined that a sensitive and imaginative man—an artist—could be so completely abandoned by the society his genius had helped to enrich. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ Life is greater than you know. If you could travel in Time, and see how great is man's courage—if you could see all of his triumphs over despair and grief and pain—you would know that there is nothing to fear! Nothing at all!
Joe rose from the table, suddenly calm, quiet.
"Come on," he said quietly. "We're getting out of here right now. My car's outside and if Mike tries to stop us I'll fix him!"
The boy and the girl walked toward the door together, a young and extremely pretty girl and a boy grown suddenly to the full stature of a man.
Rather regretfully Moonson watched them go. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ I guess every guy feels like that about every pretty woman he sees. Even about some that aren't so pretty. But then you get to know and like a woman, and you don't feel that way so much. You respect her and you don't let yourself feel that way.
Then something happens. You love her so much it's like the first time again but with a whole lot added. You love her so much you'd die to make her happy.
Joe was shaking when he slipped into the chair left vacant by Mike and reached out for both her hands. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ There was a fearlessness in such people which made them stand out from the crowd, stone-markers in a desert waste to lend assurance to a tired wayfarer by its sturdy permanence, its sun-mirroring strength. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ It was not easy for a man to live up to a name like Man, Live Forever! But Moonson was ready to believe that it could be done. There was something in human nature which made a man abandon caution and try to live up to the claims made for him by his parents at birth. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ Mike won't care! Mike will kill him anyway! Joe couldn't help falling in love with me, but Mike won't care what Joe could help! Mike was never young himself, never a sweet kid like Joe!
Mike killed a man when he was fourteen years old! He spent seven years in a reformatory and the kids there were never young. Joe will be just one of those kids to Mike ...
Her fear kept growing.
You couldn't fight men like Mike. Mike was strong in too many different ways. When you ran a tavern with an upstairs room for special customers you had to be tough, strong. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ In the Elizabethan Age men had thrown caution to the winds and lived with their whole bodies, not just with their minds alone. Perhaps that was why, even in the year 3689, defiant names still cropped up. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Frank Belknap Long, The Man from Time

“ Every movement rigidly prescribed, arms held rigid and sharply bent at the elbows. Slow movements rather than lively ones, a bowing and a scraping with bowls of fruit extended in gift offerings at every turn. ”

Frank Belknap Long

Summary

Quotes from The Man from Time (Frank Belknap Long)

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