William Gibson Quotes

The future is always here in the past

Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.

People who think about time travel stories sometimes think that going back in time would be fun because you would have all the information you needed to be much more astute than the people there, when the truth is of course you wouldn't.

There are things that I would say that you could call an instant of time; or better, a now. As we live we seem to move through a succession of instants of time, nows, and the question is, what are they? There are where everything in the universe is at this moment, now.

Time is not a line, but a series of now-points.

In 'The Plato Papers' I wanted to get another perspective on the present moment by extrapolating into the distant future. So in that sense, there's a definite similarity of purpose between a book set in the future and a book set in the past.

It's not clear in physics why you can't see the future.

Boundaries are actually the main factor in space, just as the present, another boundary, is the main factor in time.

If the present is really all we have, then the present lasts forever.

The present moment, if you think about it, is the only time there is. No matter what time it is, it is always now.

Your entire life only happens in this moment. The present moment is life itself. Yet, people live as if the opposite were true and treat the present moment as a stepping stone to the next moment - a means to an end.

Unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax.

Each moment is defined by a multitude of histories, the past constantly converging upon us, perpetually decaying and reforming itself on the steady pulse of now, now, now, now.

You can’t change the past. You can’t even change the future, in the sense that you can only change the present one moment at a time, stubbornly, until the future unwinds itself into the stories of our lives.

What is an idea made of? Of future, past and also meanwhile.

To know the future absolutely it to be trapped into that future absolutely. It collapses time. Present becomes future.

As Einstein himself pointed out. He said we’re like people in a boat without oars drifting along a winding river. Around us we see only the present. We can’t see the past, back in the bends and curves behind us. But it’s there.

Live both in the future and the past. Who does not live in the past does not live in the future.

Time never runs backward when I need it to. Not for me, and not for anyone else.

The experience of every past moment but belies the faith of each present.

[M]emory is time folding back on itself. To remember is to disengage from the present.

Once upon a time . . . What time are we upon and where do I belong?

The past is a kind of future that has already happened.

What we call the present is given shape by an accumulation of the past.

Attention-yes! That's present! And present, you see, makes past and future.