[PW] ? Ray Cummings Quote (Quotation Query #634)

Fred Shapiro fred.shapiro at yale.edu
Sun Nov 12 14:56:52 PST 2006


You didn't think the publication of the book would stop the Quotation 
Queries, did you?  Second edition, you know.

In The Yale Book of Quotations I have the following quote:

Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.
 	Ray Cummings, "The Time Professor" (1921)

A purchaser of the YBQ has written to me to say that "The line is in 
Cummings' most famous story, 'The Girl in the Golden Atom', which was 
originally published in All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1919."  His source is 
The Giant Anthology of Science Fiction, edited by Leo Margulies and 
Oscar J. Friend, Merlin Press, Inc., New York, 1954. The quotation is from 
Chapter V, "The World in the Ring", on p. 148 of his copy. Here is the 
quotation, with some context:

"To get a conception of this change you must analyze definitely what time is. 
We measure and mark it by years, months, and so forth, down to minutes and 
seconds, all based upon the movements of our earth around its sun. But that is 
the measurement of time, not time itself. How would you describe time?"

The Big Business Man smiled. "Time," he said, "is what keeps everything from 
happening at once."

"Very clever," laughed the Chemist.

Is anyone able to verify whether the same passage appears in the original 
magazine publication?  Denny?

Fred Shapiro




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