I begin by confessing a general fascination with the concept of time. I puzzle endlessly over the relationship between time and matter, and the insistence of scientists that before the Big Bang time did not exist. I grapple with the relationship between time and speed, and the fact that if we could travel at the speed of light time would not move. I seek to grasp Stephen Hawking's recent conversion to the view that, in the physical world, time may yet run in reverse. I am intrigued that our concepts of time came to Australia only with the First Fleet, for aboriginal time was cyclical rather than linear. Events could recur, dead people could live again.– Rosalyn Higgins

Time is multifaceted: it is involved in physical processes and social conventions, in the abstract relations of mathematics and concrete relations between people. We measure it in clock-time units and by celestial motion, with the aid of recurrent events and through changes in our bodies. We utilize it as a medium of exchange for goods, services or payment. We use it as a resource of nature, of society, of people, and of institutions … time for us is clearly not exhausted by the clock-time measure.– Barbara Adam

Time remains the central yet forgotten force that motivates and informs the universe, from its most cosmological principles to its most intimate living details.– Elisabeth Grosz