It is later than you think

“It is later than you think” is an Earth saying that crystallizes a human sense of time as slipping away. In the Martian perspective presented here, that underlying notion is not merely unfamiliar but inconceivable, setting human urgency against a way of being in which waiting requires no haste.

Meaning and Martian Contrast

The phrase appears as one of two familiar human maxims that cannot be expressed in Martian. The other, “Haste makes waste,” is also absent from Martian speech, but for the opposite reason: its practical lesson is already so basic to Martian life that it need not be stated. By contrast, the thought that time is later than one supposes has no Martian equivalent at all. The difference is described not as a consequence of Martians living longer than humans, but as a fundamentally different attitude toward time.

Waiting and Narrative Time

The passage places the saying beside the Martian sense that what was true “in the Beginning” remains true “now and ever shall be.” The juxtaposition makes the human phrase sound contingent and anxious, while Martian time is presented as continuous rather than pressing toward a deadline. That contrast is embodied in Smith’s stillness: he waits for his brother with quiet happiness, prepared to remain without moving for years if necessary. The scene does not make waiting an empty interval; it presents it as a settled state of trust.

Place in the Novel’s Perspective

The phrase helps mark the limits of translating Martian experience into human language. The narrator explains that human words such as “patient” only approximate Smith’s attitude, because human language does not encompass Martian emotions and assumptions. “It is later than you think” therefore works as more than a proverb about time: its very untranslatability shows how deeply ordinary human urgency depends on a worldview Smith does not share.