Soliloquy


Scott Carey: "I was continuing to shrink, to become... what? The infinitesimal? What was I? Still a human being? Or was I the man of the future? If there were other bursts of radiation, other clouds drifting across seas and continents, would other beings follow me into this vast new world? So close - the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet - like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens. The universe, worlds beyond number, God's silver tapestry spread across the night. And in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of man's own limited dimension. I had presumed upon nature. That existence begins and ends in man's conception, not nature's. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away. And in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero."

Awesome, stirring words. A great example of how science fiction can be poetic, moving and memorable. One of the great movie speeches/soliloquys. Richard Matheson, we salute you!


"We find ourselves like a hollow glass globe, from the emptiness of which - a voice speaks."

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I STILL EXIST.

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Was this soliloquy really within the original novel, cuz from what I heard the text was just somewhat an answer to a religious theme?

And if so, can someone post up the original soliloquy from the novel?

OBVIOUSLY

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[deleted]

So... true...

OBVIOUSLY

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I would like to know this too, because I thought this quote was actually attributed to Friedrich Durrenmatt from his play "Romulus the Great". If you do a search on Bartleby, the whole solioquy is there, but it also includes the line at the end "even athletes need to sleep". I went and got the play and the last line is there, but the whole shrinking part is not. I didn't even know that this was quoted at the end of the Incredible Shrinking Man until now. So where does it come from: the novel or Durrenmatt? Thanks!

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According to the trivia page for this movie, the soliloquy was written by Jack Arnold and not by Matheson. I don't know what Arnold might have looked to as a source, though.

''It's a lonely way, you know, the way of the necromancer.''

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I was left wondering at the end with those words "To God there is no zero." I kept thinking of some scientific idea that I've heard of sometime about Zero = Infinity.

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This concept seems to imply a sort of pantheism - the belief that God is in everything and everything is an embodiment of the divine. In that way, everything, from the tiniest molecule, to the largest objects and organisms on earth, are one and the same.

My real name is Jeff

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