If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.

You're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film—and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level—but I don't want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he's missed the point.

The destruction of this planet would have no significance on a cosmic scale: to an observer in the Andromeda nebula, the sign of our extinction would be no more than a match flaring for a second in the heavens: and if that match does blaze in the darkness there will be none to mourn a race that used a power that could have lit a beacon in the stars to light its funeral pyre. The choice is ours.

It's a mistake to confuse pity with love.

Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines things.

The feel of the experience is the important thing, not the ability to verbalize or analyze it.

Have you ever had a single moment's thought about my responsibilities?