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Anime
Every single thing in the cosmos has a fixed life. Galaxies, planets, humans, Transformers... I alone have stood outside the reach of time, watching, ever vigilant, as the millennium marched past. I have seen oceans rise, continents shift and mountains crumble. I have seen brother rise against brother, and the decimation it leaves behind. And always the great cycle continues, as new life rises from the ashes of destruction. Now after eons of watching, I too have become part of the cycle, starting a new life with purpose and meaning, and though that life might end, I know now I will never die.
— Vector Prime, Transformers: Cybertron
Comic Books
Hellboy... Your fall should be like the fall of mountains... But I was before mountains. I was in the beginning and shall be forever... The first and the last... The world come full circle.
— The Ogdru Jahad, Hellboy
There are not many of them, all things considered: the truly old. Even on this planet, in this age, when people consider a mere hundred years, or a thousand, to be an unusual span. There are, for example, less than ten thousand humanoid individuals alive today who have personal memories of the saber-toothed tiger, the megatherium, the cave bear. There are today less than a thousand who walked the streets of Atlantis. (The first Atlantis. The other lands that bore that name were shadows, echo-Atlantises, and they came later.) There are less than five hundred living humans who remember the human civilizations that pre-dated the great lizards. (There were a few; fossil records are unreliable. Several of them lasted for millions of years.) There are roughly seventy people walking the Earth, human to all appearances (and in some cases, to all medical tests currently available) who were alive before the Earth had begun to congeal from gas and dust. How well do you know your friends, your neighbours, your lovers? Walk the streets of any city and stare carefully at the people who pass you, and know this: They are there too. The old ones.
Nebula Man: I have lived three billion years. I might have grown huge enough to replace this entire universe. But there is a flaw in me that keeps me small.
Frankenstein: Let that be your epitaph, then.
Frankenstein: Let that be your epitaph, then.
Fan Works
Asuka's brain was still refusing to process that number. He was 452,388 years old?! Stone tools weren't that old! Fire wasn't that old!
— A Crown of Stars, Chapter 20
My baseline for "older than dirt" was anything from before the Titans, and I hadn't met many beings that qualified. Nekhbet, the Egyptian vulture goddess. A lady in a brief encounter in Iran. That was pretty much it, and the snake had been much, much older than either of them. Their trip across the continent had happened tens of thousands of years ago. It was, somehow, still happening, and it would be for as long as the traces of the snake were carved into the land.
— Percy Jackson, Son of the Western Sea
Eons past, Shazam himself had wielded the power of the ancient gods, as a super-hero — the first such being on Earth. Then he had asked for the gift of aging, and been given it, though he aged at a much reduced rate compared to normal men.
"I do not care if you're 10,000 years old, I grew up in the Ninth House and I am not afraid to beat up old people!" I snap.
"4.5 billion," the Body corrects, absently. She advances toward me with the inevitability of an avalanche.
Naturally, I reply, "Come again?"
"I am 4.5 billion years old, infant," she repeats, and when I gawp at her she seizes me by the mandible once more, one hand holding me up on my toes as she studies my face, as bored of my shit as ever.
"Okay, I'm pretty sure that's unrealistic," I say. "Like, I'm no Sex Pal, but I'm pretty sure anyone that old should be dust."
The 4.5 billion year old Body haunting our metaphorical dick pauses to gaze off over my shoulder with a look of sudden, unspeakable hunger. "Dust. What I would give to be dust!" she marvels, which is a totally normal thing to say.
"4.5 billion," the Body corrects, absently. She advances toward me with the inevitability of an avalanche.
Naturally, I reply, "Come again?"
"I am 4.5 billion years old, infant," she repeats, and when I gawp at her she seizes me by the mandible once more, one hand holding me up on my toes as she studies my face, as bored of my shit as ever.
"Okay, I'm pretty sure that's unrealistic," I say. "Like, I'm no Sex Pal, but I'm pretty sure anyone that old should be dust."
The 4.5 billion year old Body haunting our metaphorical dick pauses to gaze off over my shoulder with a look of sudden, unspeakable hunger. "Dust. What I would give to be dust!" she marvels, which is a totally normal thing to say.
Film — Animation
"The first thing you have to understand is that I am old. Older than the human race."
—Vandal Savage, Justice League: Doom
Film — Live-Action
"Don't quote the old magic to me, witch. I was there when it was written."
"I suspect I saw the British Isles from what is now the French coast. Huge mountains on the other side of an enormous deep valley that was shadowed by the setting sun. This was before they were separated from the continent by the rising seas as the glacier was melting."
— John Oldman, The Man from Earth
"I've had so many names. Old names that only the wind and the trees can pronounce. I am the mountain, the forest and the earth. I am... I am a faun."
—The Faun, Pan's Labyrinth
"Macleod, I was born two-thousand, three hundred and thirty-seven years ago. In that time, I've had three wives. The last was Shakiko, a Japanese princess. Her father, Masamune, a genius, made this for me in 593 B.C."
— Ramirez to Connor, Highlander
Literature
Three million years! The infinitely crowded panorama of human history, with its empires and its kings, its triumphs and its tragedies, covered barely one thousandth of this appalling span of time. Not only Man himself, but most of the animals now alive on Earth, did not even exist when the black enigma was so carefully buried here, in the most brilliant and most spectacular of all the craters of the Moon.
And you see, we too wish to see the sun again. After all, we were there for its birth.
— The Fig Men, The Deep (Nick Cutter)
Before the gods that made the gods
Had seen their sunrise pass,
The white horse of the white horse vale
Was cut out of the grass.
Before the gods that made the gods
Had drunk at dawn their fill,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was hoary on the hill.
Age beyond age on British land,
Aeons on aeons gone,
Was peace and war in western hills,
And the White Horse looked on.
For the White Horse knew England
When there was none to know;
He saw the first oar break or bend,
He saw heaven fall and the world end,
O God, how long ago.
Had seen their sunrise pass,
The white horse of the white horse vale
Was cut out of the grass.
Before the gods that made the gods
Had drunk at dawn their fill,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was hoary on the hill.
Age beyond age on British land,
Aeons on aeons gone,
Was peace and war in western hills,
And the White Horse looked on.
For the White Horse knew England
When there was none to know;
He saw the first oar break or bend,
He saw heaven fall and the world end,
O God, how long ago.
I have seen thousands of millions of years, [Tavi]. In a time such as that, oceans swell and die away. Deserts become green farmlands. Mountains are ground to dust and valleys, and new mountains are born in fire. The earth itself flows like water, great ranges of land spinning and colliding, and the stars themselves spin and reel into new shapes. It is the great dance, Aleran, and the lifetime of your race is but a beat within a measure... In that time, I have seen the deaths of many things. Entire species come and go, like the sparks rising from a campfire.
— Alera, First Lord's Fury
I'd been alone for somewhere between 250 and 260 million years. I'd forgotten the exact date. Our prime had been the Devonian, and we'd been old news by the Permian. We'd become a joke by the Triassic and fish food by the Cretaceous. The Cenozoic had dragged by like the eon it was. At some point, I'd looked around and everyone else was gone. I was still there, the spirit of a fish in the shape of a man.
— The Creature From The Black Lagoon, by Jim Shepard
The notes were painstakingly detailed, describing the origins of each [weapon], the name of the craftsmen, and in some cases, who had owned the particular dagger, sword, or spear over the span of centuries.
Remy found himself lost in the pages and time periods, remembering snippets of his own past when weapons such as these were carried with as much ease as a designer purse or iPod.
Remy found himself lost in the pages and time periods, remembering snippets of his own past when weapons such as these were carried with as much ease as a designer purse or iPod.
— Dancing on the Head of a Pin: A Remy Chandler Novel
I REMEMBER WHEN THIS WILL BE AGAIN.
— Azrael, the Death of Universes, Discworld
The Tooth Fairy: I do remember when the land was different. Ice. Many times of... ice. And the... what do you call them? The lands, the big lands... all different.
Susan: You mean continents?
The Tooth Fairy: ...all different. I was the dark in the cave! The shadow in the trees! You've heard about... the primal scream? That was... at me! I was... and then... that thing, you know, that thing... all light and bright... lightning you could carry, hot little sunshine, and then there was no more dark, just shadows, and then you made axes, axes in the forests, and then...
Susan: You mean continents?
The Tooth Fairy: ...all different. I was the dark in the cave! The shadow in the trees! You've heard about... the primal scream? That was... at me! I was... and then... that thing, you know, that thing... all light and bright... lightning you could carry, hot little sunshine, and then there was no more dark, just shadows, and then you made axes, axes in the forests, and then...
Sometimes the discovery becomes massive and everybody in the world finds out at once and I end up on a pedestal. Sometimes they make me their leader, sometimes they call me an abomination, sometimes I get arrested and studied, usually it's all of this at once. I've been everywhere. I've done everything, spoken every language, built a pyramid, survived re-entry. History goes in cycles. If you watch it for long enough you can see the tipping points coming and be there when they happen. I invented fire, the wheel, the electric motor, antibiotics, you name it, every era, every country. Fought in X number of wars. Once, I actually ruled the whole world.
I've walked on the Moon barefoot.
I've walked on the Moon barefoot.
— Anne Poole, Fine Structure
"Five hundred and seventy-six thousand million, three thousand five hundred and seventy-nine years," said Marvin. "I counted them."
Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the Little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless — before the Dark Lord came from Outside.
— Tom Bombadil, The Lord of the Rings
Ere iron was found or tree was hewn,
When young was mountain under moon;
Ere ring was made, or wrought was woe,
It walked the forests long ago.
When young was mountain under moon;
Ere ring was made, or wrought was woe,
It walked the forests long ago.
— Gandalf's riddle of the Ents, The Lord of the Rings
I was old when the Pharaohs first mounted
The jewel-deck’d throne by the Nile;
I was old in those epochs uncounted
When I, and I only, was vile;
And Man, yet untainted and happy, dwelt in bliss on the far Arctic isle.
The jewel-deck’d throne by the Nile;
I was old in those epochs uncounted
When I, and I only, was vile;
And Man, yet untainted and happy, dwelt in bliss on the far Arctic isle.
— Nemesis By H.P. Lovecraft
Shallan: You're... old, aren't you? Not a Herald, but as old as they are?
Hoid: Child, when they were but babes, I had already lived dozens of lifetimes. 'Old' is a word you use for worn shoes. I'm something else entirely.
Hoid: Child, when they were but babes, I had already lived dozens of lifetimes. 'Old' is a word you use for worn shoes. I'm something else entirely.
High up in the North in the land called Svithjod, there stands a rock. It is a hundred miles high and a hundred miles wide. Once every thousand years a little bird comes to this rock to sharpen its beak. When the rock has thus been worn away, then a single day of eternity will have gone by.
He certainly did have a lot of memories. If there had been a contest to see which single being, among all the universe’s inhabitants in all the endless eons of its existence, had the most in the way of stored-up memories to take out and chew over, Wan-To would have been the incontestable winner. If your mind remains clear, and Wan-To's had, you can remember a lot out of a lifetime of ten-to-the-fortieth years.
My name is Luru Parz. I was born in AD 5279, as humans once counted Time. Now I have lived so long that such dates have no meaning. We have lost the years, lost them in orders of magnitude.
Since the dawn of this universe, she'd seen everything there was to see and been nearly everything there was to be. She'd swum the ocean depths as a plesiosaur and spent several hundred years as cave moss. She'd been there to see the invention of the wheel, the first flint axe, several hundred ice ages repeated over and over again on planets now dead and long forgotten. On this planet, she'd been there for the rise of the Roman Empire, the fall of Camelot, every Chinese dynasty, the Dark Ages, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution. She'd marvelled at the wonders of the written alphabet, the discovery of fire, and Velcro. And she'd witnessed the horrors of Genghis Khan's conquering hordes, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Pet Rock craze.
—Discussing Lotus, Monster
He was there when the first men came into the world, erupting into being along with them. In a way, they gave him life and purpose, and in return he gave them stories to tell, for the Crooked Man remembered every tale.
Saturn, whose name in the heavens is Lurga, stood in the Blue Room. His spirit lay upon the house, or even on the whole earth, with a cold pressure such as might flatten the very orb of Tellus to a wafer. Matched against the lead-like burden of his antiquity, the other gods themselves perhaps felt young and ephemeral. It was a mountain of centuries sloping up from the highest antiquity we can conceive, up and up like a mountain whose summit never comes into sight, not to eternity where the thought can rest, but into more and still more time, into freezing wastes and silence of unnameable numbers. It was also strong like a mountain: its age was no mere morass of time where imagination can sink in reverie, but a living, self-remembering duration which repelled lighter intelligences from its structure as granite flings back waves, itself unwithered and undecayed, but able to wither any who approached it unadvised.
So he slept. After what by some standards would have been a little while the Earth’s crust decided that it had borne the weight of the Himalayas for long enough. Slowly the mountains dropped, tilting the southern plains of India towards the sky. And presently the plateau of Ceylon was the highest point on the surface of the globe and the ocean above Everest was five and a half miles deep. The Master would not be disturbed by his enemies, or his friends. Slowly, patiently, the silt drifted down through the towering ocean heights onto the wreck of the Himalayas. The blanket that would some day be chalk began to thicken at the rate of a not a few inches every century. If one had returned some time later one might have found that the sea bed was no longer five miles down, or even four, or three. Then the land tilted again and the mighty range of limestone mountains towered where once had been the oceans of Tibet. But the Master knew nothing of this, nor was his sleep disturbed when it happened again, and again, and again. Now the rain and rivers were washing away the chalk and carrying it out to the new oceans and the surface was moving down towards the buried tomb. Slowly the miles of rock were washed away until at last the metal sphere which housed the master’s body returned once more to the light of day, though to a day much longer and much dimmer than it had been when the Master closed his eyes.
—"The Awakening" by Arthur C. Clarke
Live-Action TV
The Doctor: How did you end up on this rock?
The Beast: The Disciples of the Light rose up against me, and chained me in the pit for all eternity.
The Doctor: When was this?
The Beast: Before time.
The Doctor: What does that mean?
The Beast: Before time.
The Doctor: What does "before time" mean?!
The Beast: Before time and light and space and matter. Before the cataclysm. Before this universe was created.
The Doctor: That's impossible. No life could have existed back then.
The Beast: (smugly) Is that your religion?
The Doctor: (Beat, for once genuinely lost for words) It's a belief.
The Beast: The Disciples of the Light rose up against me, and chained me in the pit for all eternity.
The Doctor: When was this?
The Beast: Before time.
The Doctor: What does that mean?
The Beast: Before time.
The Doctor: What does "before time" mean?!
The Beast: Before time and light and space and matter. Before the cataclysm. Before this universe was created.
The Doctor: That's impossible. No life could have existed back then.
The Beast: (smugly) Is that your religion?
The Doctor: (Beat, for once genuinely lost for words) It's a belief.
— Doctor Who: "The Satan Pit"
Galadriel: Tell me your name.
Sauron: I have been awake since the breaking of the first silence. In that time... I have had many names.
Sauron: I have been awake since the breaking of the first silence. In that time... I have had many names.
Merlin: This is Excalibur.
The Rock Of Ages: Where did you get it?
Merlin: A gift from the Lady of the Lake.
The Rock Of Ages: She has been a friend of mine... since before the Dawn of Time. (chuckles) If I can remember that, it means that I'm an old man!
The Rock Of Ages: Where did you get it?
Merlin: A gift from the Lady of the Lake.
The Rock Of Ages: She has been a friend of mine... since before the Dawn of Time. (chuckles) If I can remember that, it means that I'm an old man!
— Merlin
Byrne: I miss the days when you didn't have to lather yourself with [sunscreen].
Adam: You mean before people knew about the dangers of overexposure to the sun?
Byrne: No, I mean before there was a sun.
Adam: You mean before people knew about the dangers of overexposure to the sun?
Byrne: No, I mean before there was a sun.
The Guardian: Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a question.
Kirk: What are you?
The Guardian: I am the Guardian of Forever.
Kirk: Are you machine or being?
The Guardian: I am both and neither. I am my own beginning, my own ending.
Kirk: What are you?
The Guardian: I am the Guardian of Forever.
Kirk: Are you machine or being?
The Guardian: I am both and neither. I am my own beginning, my own ending.
Dean: So, is this the part where you kill me?
Death: You have an inflated sense of your importance. To a thing like me, a thing like you, well... Think how you would feel if a bacterium sat at your table and started to get snarky. This is one little planet in one tiny solar system, in a galaxy that is barely out of its diapers. I'm old, Dean. Very old. So I invite you to contemplate how insignificant I find you. (forks over some pizza) Eat.
Dean: I gotta ask, how old are you?
Death: As old as God, maybe older. Neither of us can remember anymore. Life/Death, Chicken/Egg — regardless: at the end, I reap him too.
Dean: God? You will reap God?
Death: Oh yes. God will die too, Dean.
Dean: Well, this is way above my pay grade.
Death: Just a bit.
Death: You have an inflated sense of your importance. To a thing like me, a thing like you, well... Think how you would feel if a bacterium sat at your table and started to get snarky. This is one little planet in one tiny solar system, in a galaxy that is barely out of its diapers. I'm old, Dean. Very old. So I invite you to contemplate how insignificant I find you. (forks over some pizza) Eat.
Dean: I gotta ask, how old are you?
Death: As old as God, maybe older. Neither of us can remember anymore. Life/Death, Chicken/Egg — regardless: at the end, I reap him too.
Dean: God? You will reap God?
Death: Oh yes. God will die too, Dean.
Dean: Well, this is way above my pay grade.
Death: Just a bit.
When your kind first huddled around the fire, I was the thing in the dark!
— The Alpha Vampire, from Supernatural
You know, I've been here for a very long time. I remember many things. I remember being on a shore-line, watching a little grey fish heave itself up on the beach. And an older brother saying "Don't step on that fish, Castiel. Big plans for that fish." I remember the Tower of Babel — all thirty-seven feet of it, which I suppose was impressive at the time. And when it fell, they howled "Divine wrath!" But come on, dried dung can only be stacked so high. I remember Cain and Abel, David and Goliath, Sodom and Gomorrah.
Mythology and Religion
I see in Your universal body many forms — expanded without limit, timeless. In You, there is no end, there is no beginning, and there is no middle.
— Chapter 11, Verse 16, Bhagavad Gita
For in Your sight a thousand years
are like yesterday that has passed,
like a watch of the night.
are like yesterday that has passed,
like a watch of the night.
The LORD created me at the beginning of His course as the first of His works of old.
In the distant past I was fashioned, at the beginning, at the origin of earth.
There was still no deep when I was brought forth, no springs rich in water;
before [the foundations of] the mountains were sunk, before the hills I was born.
He had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first clumps of clay.
I was there when He set the heavens into place; when He fixed the horizon upon the deep;
when He made the heavens above firm, and the fountains of the deep gushed forth;
when He assigned the sea its limits, so that its waters never transgress His command;
when He fixed the foundations of the earth,
I was with Him as a confidant,
a source of delight every day,
rejoicing before Him at all times,
rejoicing in His inhabited world,
finding delight with mankind.
In the distant past I was fashioned, at the beginning, at the origin of earth.
There was still no deep when I was brought forth, no springs rich in water;
before [the foundations of] the mountains were sunk, before the hills I was born.
He had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first clumps of clay.
I was there when He set the heavens into place; when He fixed the horizon upon the deep;
when He made the heavens above firm, and the fountains of the deep gushed forth;
when He assigned the sea its limits, so that its waters never transgress His command;
when He fixed the foundations of the earth,
I was with Him as a confidant,
a source of delight every day,
rejoicing before Him at all times,
rejoicing in His inhabited world,
finding delight with mankind.
In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I am the one which was, who is, and who is yet to come. I am the Almighty.
Tabletop Games
Not all races have creation myths. The aboleths do not share myth stories for a simple reason: they believe it is an indisputable fact that they were the first, the primal race that existed before nearly all else, second only to the unknowable Elder Evils that spawned them. They know this because they remember the ancient world with crystal clarity. All else in the world is a pale imitation of their primal perfection. Even the deities themselves are subject to derision, for the aboleths know that they predate the gods. They have seen the world destroyed countless times by apocalypses both natural and artificial, yet each time the world remade itself and the aboleths survived. They are truly nightmares out of time.
— Dungeons & Dragons: Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations
Before Shinka's walls were built, before the torii at Okina stood, she was there, tall and proud against the sky, and she will be there long after they have fallen into dust.
It is said that the mysterious Old One Tepok taught Kroak how to draw upon the winds of magic, and that the serene Potec how to unravel those same threads. It is even written that it was Kroak and his peers who taught the ancestors of the High Elves the magic they wield to this day, in the golden age of Ulthuan before the Elves wrote down their histories. In his lifetime, Kroak witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations, entire races blooming and fading into extinction. Lord Kroak was present at the birth of the world as it is seen today, and it is said that he is fated to endure until the last moment of time itself, when the continents will burn and the world is consumed.
— Warhammer: Lizardmen Army Book (6th Edition)
"We ruled this domain before your race was born, we shall rule it when you are but a distant memory."
—Rakranos the Ancient, Warhammer: Warriors Of Chaos Army Book (7th edition)
"When the Old Ones first crafted their Gates from the substance of stars, I was there to assist their labour. Down the long ages I have come, watching the rise and fall of you lesser races and your civilizations. I’ve laid waste to knights and cities, burned fields and routed armies in my years. I could tell you much of the world that you have forgotten and more that you never knew, but I think not. You and yours are suited for nothing more than to provide me with amusement and the occasional graceful bauble for my lair. I see little else worthwhile about you."
—Brinrairdih, oft-called "the Storm that Roars," Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Old World Bestiary — A Compendium of Creatures Fair and Foul
"What do humans know of our pain? We have sung songs of lament since before your ancestors crawled on their bellies from the sea."
— Farseer Eldrad Ulthran, Warhammer 40,000
Some were old even before the Fall of the Eldar, wizened creatures that have engineered the death of suns just as they have given life to thousands of monstrous forms. Many of their number are the selfsame hedonists that led the ancient Eldar empire to utter catastrophe. Yet they regret not a single moment of their depraved existences. So steeped are these Haemonculi in matters arcane that they see even death as no more than an interesting curio.
— Warhammer 40,000: Haemonculus Covens
Video Games
"How many years... how many years? Oh, how many years I've waited. How many times has this been repeated? How many hundreds of times? How many THOUSANDS? ONE HUNDRED THOUSANDS? MILLIONS? TRILLIONS?! I've repeated this worthless comedy show more times than I can count!"
— Hazama, BlazBlue
Wolf: How old are we, Lamb?
Lamb: Older than those whose footsteps are long vanished.
Wolf: Many years.
Lamb: I remember them all.
Lamb: Older than those whose footsteps are long vanished.
Wolf: Many years.
Lamb: I remember them all.
"We have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite. Millions of years after your civilization has been eradicated and forgotten, we will endure."
— Sovereign, Mass Effect
"Organic life is nothing more than a genetic mutation. An accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal, the pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing."
— Sovereign, Mass Effect
Nameless One: What happened to the legions that once used this tower?
Coaxmetal:ENTROPY HAS UNMADE THEM.
Nameless One: What happened to planes this tower invaded?
Coaxmetal: ENTROPY HAS UNMADE THEM.
Nameless One: I... see.
Coaxmetal:ENTROPY HAS UNMADE THEM.
Nameless One: What happened to planes this tower invaded?
Coaxmetal: ENTROPY HAS UNMADE THEM.
Nameless One: I... see.
"I have been a facilitator of your kind's boundless desire to destroy itself... since the beginning. Since iron cathedrals stained the moon red with sacrificial pyres. Since machined cities crossed the sea upon gears and gossamer sail. Even in the hummingbird heartbeat of your recorded time. You are an exceptional footnote in a text one could not even leaf through in a star's life cycle, so I invite you to contemplate how quickly my eyes gloss over you. Don't take it personally."
— Samael, The Secret World
Classic Eggman: What time is it?
Modern Eggman: It's the exact same time as when you asked earlier, and it will be the exact same time when you ask later, THERE IS NO TIME HERE!
Modern Eggman: It's the exact same time as when you asked earlier, and it will be the exact same time when you ask later, THERE IS NO TIME HERE!
"Huh, what a brat. Little children like you have no way to stand a chance against me, an eternal being. Your history of scarlet... Divided by my history, the result is zero. To an eternal one, your existence is but an instant."
Visual Novels
"It is indeed true that the world will die soon. However, it is mistaken to speak of our temporal lengths in terms of human senses. Terms such as 'just a bit' or 'a little more' can easily mean a millennium to us."
— Methuselah, speaking to fellow Time Abyss Mercurius, Dies irae ~Interview with Kaziklu Bey~
Asaga di Ryuvia: Why were they so obsessed with the space whale meat anyways? Is it really that tasty?
Kayto Shields: They weren't planning on eating it, Asaga. Ongessite is actually the fossilized remains of a species of krill which was native to Ongess millions of years ago. Space whales which fed on the krill back then are still alive to this day, making their blubber the only source of Ongessite outside Ongess.
Kayto Shields: They weren't planning on eating it, Asaga. Ongessite is actually the fossilized remains of a species of krill which was native to Ongess millions of years ago. Space whales which fed on the krill back then are still alive to this day, making their blubber the only source of Ongessite outside Ongess.
—Sunrider 4: The Captain's Return
Webcomics
"I can remember when your language was nothing but quaint little grunts and sneezes. That you will be slaughtered at my leisure is a foregone conclusion. So, go ahead and run your chubby little heart out."
"A stone is a part of the earth. It may be shaped into human form but, like me, it is not alive. A stone does not desire anything. It has no dreams or feelings of any kind. Along with myself, the rocks and stones have been the only constant on this planet [...] Of course, it is not a perfect definition. For example... a stone can be broken."
— Ms. Jones discussing her nature
, Gunnerkrigg Court
, Gunnerkrigg CourtTenant: Are you claiming that your people have been on the surface for over ten million years?
Rod: Oh, my people have been down there for much longer than that. No, I was just talking about me, personally. (Beat) If your next question is about skin cream, save it for later.
Rod: Oh, my people have been down there for much longer than that. No, I was just talking about me, personally. (Beat) If your next question is about skin cream, save it for later.
Vog: Conversion between my time scale and your own standard Earth years isn't hard, but there are a lot of zeroes. Rounding may introduce as much as a one percent margin of error.
Reverend Theo: The margin of error in your guess at your own age is bigger than the age of my whole species.
Vog: Like I said, I am having trouble understanding your perspective.
Reverend Theo: The margin of error in your guess at your own age is bigger than the age of my whole species.
Vog: Like I said, I am having trouble understanding your perspective.
Even with the finest life-extending, mindframe-uploading, and memory-sideboarding technology, seventy-three million years is a very long time for a sapient creature.
It's less long if you're, say, a tectonic plate on your way to make mountains with a neighbor. It's just a fraction of the time you'll spend if you're a lifeless world waiting for your molten crust to cool off enough for your surface chemistry to have a go at things like self-replication, self-awareness, and anthropomorphic metaphor.
Back then, when Earth was busy being all hot and patient, life elsewhere was already old...
It's less long if you're, say, a tectonic plate on your way to make mountains with a neighbor. It's just a fraction of the time you'll spend if you're a lifeless world waiting for your molten crust to cool off enough for your surface chemistry to have a go at things like self-replication, self-awareness, and anthropomorphic metaphor.
Back then, when Earth was busy being all hot and patient, life elsewhere was already old...
Do you truly know how old I am? The days are like water.
— Mottom, Kill Six Billion Demons
"Imagine a beach, Allison. A broad and beautiful beach many miles wide. And once every one hundred years, you take a single grain of sand away from that beach. When that beach has been reduced to nothingness and is scoured to the sheet rock and the surf… My lifetime still will not have passed."
— Gog-Agog, Kill Six Billion Demons
Web Original
"Dumplin is 78 trillion years old!"
"I've been around since before times started!"
"Dumplin was the cosmic force of creation."
"Remember the embryotic ooze? That was meee."
"I've been around since before times started!"
"Dumplin was the cosmic force of creation."
"Remember the embryotic ooze? That was meee."
As the stars and black holes slowly start dissipating, our universe begins to breathe its last breath. For trillions of years, nothing happens. After the last star has died, there is nothing left in the universe except for blacks holes for an unimaginably long period of time, and even they are slowly dying. It took nine clocks to reach this point, but it won't be until the forty-third clock that the last black hole has finally dissipated. The universe has been reduced to its component particles and the distances between these particles are so great that they will never interact with one-another ever again. There will be nothing left of our universe except for a cold, dark void forever expanding into nothingness. And only then will this door open.
Muhahahaha... My true self was born 1,200,000 years ago... The legendary god of blacksmithing, Aramaki Scaltinof... forged a sword that a Stand dwelled within! Meaning as lang... As long as there's someone to wield me, I'm immortal!
Western Animation
Before there was time, before there was anything, there was nothing. And before there was nothing... there were monsters.
You're tiny and you're minuscule
Irrelevant, a speck
Upon the dark side of that rock
You're just a measly little fleck
Your life may last a century on Earth or maybe quicker
But up here, a hundred years is just a flash, a blip, a flickeeeeeer~!
Irrelevant, a speck
Upon the dark side of that rock
You're just a measly little fleck
Your life may last a century on Earth or maybe quicker
But up here, a hundred years is just a flash, a blip, a flickeeeeeer~!
It all began when your universe was forged in the crucible of the Big Bang. At this time, our civilization was already 17 years old.
— Unnamed Nibblonian, Futurama
For a trillion years, I dwelt in solitude, content with my job and my stamp collecting, but then I looked across immensity and saw the big bang, and I was like, "Whoa, who's that?" And I knew then that I was lonely.
— Yivo, Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs
I lived ten thousand lifetimes before the first of your kind crawled out of the mud.
So many lives, it's become a blur. I don't know who I am anymore, only that I must sail onward; ever-onward down the river of time. Never resting, always moving, further draining my Nanite reserves beyond my ability to replenish. At each re-emergence I am pursued by the nameless force... I now know it's personal. I am a virus; an infection of Space-Time. Call it what you like, this is Times' Antibody! And whether I am borne home or drowned in its' currents: this is my final journey...
Real Life
Our Galaxy is now in the brief springtime of its life — a springtime made glorious by such brilliant blue-white Stars as Vega and Sirius, and, on a more humble scale, our own Sun. Not until all these have flamed through their incandescent youth, in a few fleeting billions of years, will the real history of the universe begin.
It will be a history illuminated only by the reds and infra-reds of dully glowing stars that would be almost invisible to our eyes; yet the somber hues of that all-but-eternal universe may be full of color and beauty to whatever strange beings have adapted to it. They will know that before them lie, not the millions of years in which we measure the eras of geology, nor the billions of years which span the past lives of the stars, but years to be counted literally in trillions.
They will have time enough, in those endless aeons, to attempt all things, and to gather all knowledge. They will not be like gods, because no gods imagined by our minds have ever possessed the powers they will command. But for all that, they may envy us, basking in the bright afterglow of creation; for we knew the universe when it was young.
It will be a history illuminated only by the reds and infra-reds of dully glowing stars that would be almost invisible to our eyes; yet the somber hues of that all-but-eternal universe may be full of color and beauty to whatever strange beings have adapted to it. They will know that before them lie, not the millions of years in which we measure the eras of geology, nor the billions of years which span the past lives of the stars, but years to be counted literally in trillions.
They will have time enough, in those endless aeons, to attempt all things, and to gather all knowledge. They will not be like gods, because no gods imagined by our minds have ever possessed the powers they will command. But for all that, they may envy us, basking in the bright afterglow of creation; for we knew the universe when it was young.
— Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future
...no recorded event has occurred in the world but Damascus was in existence to receive the news of it. Go back as far as you will into the vague past, there was always a Damascus. In the writings of every century for more than four thousand years, its name has been mentioned and its praises sung. To Damascus, years are only moments, decades are only flitting trifles of time. She measures time, not by days and months and years, but by the empires she has seen rise, and prosper and crumble to ruin. She is a type of immortality. She saw the foundations of Baalbec, and Thebes, and Ephesus laid; she saw these villages grow into mighty cities, and amaze the world with their grandeur—and she has lived to see them desolate, deserted, and given over to the owls and the bats. She saw the Israelitish empire exalted, and she saw it annihilated. She saw Greece rise, and flourish two thousand years, and die. In her old age she saw Rome built; she saw it overshadow the world with its power; she saw it perish. The few hundreds of years of Genoese and Venetian might and splendor were, to grave old Damascus, only a trifling scintillation hardly worth remembering. Damascus has seen all that has ever occurred on earth, and still she lives. She has looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires, and will see the tombs of a thousand more before she dies. Though another claims the name, old Damascus is by right the Eternal City.
— Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
