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0e4d86a I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room. individuality science-fiction Ray Bradbury
70ab6c3 Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. philosophy science-fiction Douglas Adams
98c4b32 Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now? humor towel thumb social-commentary science-fiction Douglas Adams
0ee3734 Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. novelist science-fiction Douglas Adams
906aca9 My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes. science-fiction Douglas Adams
59f8d31 When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late. religion science-fiction Frank Herbert
5ae749f Sometimes I think I must have a Guardian Idiot. A little invisible spirit just behind my shoulder, looking out for me...only he's an imbecile. social-commentary science-fiction Spider Robinson
ba1cfe6 Loneliness becomes an acid that eats away at you. loneliness science-fiction Haruki Murakami
27caadb "Tally smiled. At least she was causing trouble to the end. "I'm Tally Youngblood," she said. "make me pretty." science-fiction Scott Westerfeld
3ba770b The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the 'Star Spangled Banner', but in fact the message was this: science-fiction Douglas Adams
710fa4c Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there, and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be. bypass hitchikers science-fiction Douglas Adams
e3a05ed You are so... 11:59 fantasy midnighters science-fiction horror Scott Westerfeld
e486828 A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt. love science-fiction Ursula K. Le Guin
6ed0134 "You mean old books?" "Stories written before space travel but about space travel." "How could there have been stories about space travel before --" "The writers," Pris said, "made it up." meta science-fiction Philip K. Dick
ff65dc7 And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before--and thus was the Empire forged. humour humor star-trek-references grammar-humor space-travel science-fiction grammar Douglas Adams
82b3320 We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams. science-fiction Orson Scott Card
8dbad8c "When you got captured, I didn't know..." He trailed off, had to chug whiskey before he could continue. "If it'd be like..." "What?" "Like it was with Clotile." "Oh, Jackson, no. I was okay. I'm unharmed." "Didn't know if I'd get there too late," he said with a shudder. Then he crossed over to me, until we stood toe-to-toe. "Evie, if you ever get taken from me again, you better know that I'll be coming for you." He cupped my face with a bloodstained hand. "So you stay the hell alive! You don't do like Clotile, you doan take that way out. You and me can get through anything, just give me a chance."--his voice broke lower "just give me a chance to get to you." He buried his face in my hair, inhaling deeply. "There is nothing that can happen to you that we can't get past." ... "When you say we...?" He pulled back, gazing down at me, his eyes blazing. "I'm goan to lay it all out there for you. Laugh in my face--I don't care. But I'm goan to get this off my chest." "I won't laugh. I'm listening." "Evie, I've wanted you from the first time I saw you. Even when I hated you, I wanted you." He raked his fingers through his hair. "I got it bad, me." My heart felt like it'd stopped--so that I could hear him better. "For as long as you've been looking down your nose at me, I've been craving you, an envie like I've never known." "I don't look down at you! I'm too busy looking up to you." ... "The corners of his lips curled for an instant before he grew serious again. "You asked me if I had that phone with your pictures, if I'd looked at it. Damn right, I did! I saw you playing with a dog at the beach, and doing a crazy-ass flip off a high dive, and making faces for the camera. I learned about you"- his voice grew hoarse -"and I wanted more of you. To see you every day." With a humourless laugh, he admitted, "After the Flash, I was constantly sourcing ways to charge a goddamned phone--that would never make a call." I murmured, "I didn't know...I couldn't be sure." "It's you for me, peekon." young-adult romance love science-fiction Kresley Cole
db3dc75 "Don't blame you," said Marvin and counted five hundred and ninety-seven thousand million sheep before falling asleep again a second later." humor marvin h2g2 robots science-fiction Douglas Adams
2787839 I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid I'll never get a chance to live! diamond-eyes humour fantasy inspirational thriller science-fiction crime A.A. Bell
f989d42 It's better to die in pursuit of your dreams than to live a life without hope. phantom-menace pursuit science-fiction star-wars Terry Brooks
56bbd33 "Do we not each dream of dreams? Do we not dance on the notes of lost sex shakespeare magic rain poems romance sacrifice death dreams music songs life carrack cityisle cityspire desolate fedora haunts horace-walpole mannequins phillip-k-dick puddles specters spectre amnesia androids haunting greek-mythology waking damnation count emily-dickinson magick tempest apocalypse reflections storms masquerade empty science-fiction gothic jazz ships ghosts water piano Nathan Reese Maher
58dfa2f To enslave an individual troubles your consciences, Archivist, but to enslave a clone is no more troubling than owning the latest six-wheeler ford, ethically. Because you cannot discern our differences, you assume we have none. But make no mistake: even same-stem fabricants cultured in the same wombtank are as singular as snowflakes. slavery dystopia science-fiction David Mitchell
b1224d0 I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. science-fiction Ursula K. LeGuin
eac136b How many roads must a man walk down? hitchhiker-s-guide-to-the-galaxy science-fiction Douglas Adams
c4ddcdd That's what so many people didn't understand about life. The real world is the one within the walls of homes; the outside world, of careers and politics and money and fame, that was the fake world, where nothing lasted, and things were real only to the extent they harmed or helped people inside their homes. reality science-fiction home Orson Scott Card
83ec896 ...science fiction is something that happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to. Fantasy is something that happen - though often you only wish that it could. science-fiction Arthur C. Clarke
5902543 And [Asimov]'ll sign anything, hardbacks, softbacks, other people's books, scraps of paper. Inevitably someone handed him a blank check on the occasion when I was there, and he signed that without as much as a waver to his smile -- except that he signed: 'Harlan Ellison. convention self-referential fame science-fiction Isaac Asimov
fc3ad15 Sucks to be left out of adolescence, sort of like getting locked in the closet on Venus when the sun appears for the first time in a hundred years. humor ray-bradbury nerdiness science-fiction Junot Díaz
ef8a3e4 So when he touched me, it was deeper and slower than the wildfire, like the flow of molten rock far beneath the surface of the earth. Too deep to feel the heat of it, but it moved inexorably, changing the very foundations of the world with its advance. romancem science-fiction Stephenie Meyer
064f0f3 Here lies one from a distant star, but the soil is not alien to him, for in death he belongs to the universe. universe stars death science gravestone science-fiction Clifford D. Simak
de6aa49 "Her concern with landscapes and living creatures was passionate. This concern, feebly called, "the love of nature" seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy; they look forward to rotting and turning into humus. It was strange to see Takver take a leaf into her hand, or even a rock. She became an extension of it, it of her." nature fantasy the-dispossessed science-fiction Ursula K. Le Guin
00ec36f Do you ever wonder if--well, if there are people living on the third planet?' 'The third planet is incapable of supporting life,' stated the husband patiently. 'Our scientists have said there's far too much oxygen in their atmosphere. science-fiction Ray Bradbury
d524b2f He turns off the techno-shit in his goggles. All it does is confuse him; he stands there reading statistics about his own death even as it's happening to him. Very post-modern. sf science-fiction Neal Stephenson
e207c5b When I was small, I never wanted to step in puddles. Not because of any fear of drowned worms or wet stockings; I was by and large a grubby child, with a blissful disregard for filth of any kind. It was because I couldn't bring myself believe that that perfect smooth expanse was no more than I thin film of water over solid earth. I believed it was an opening into some fathomless space. Sometimes, seeing the tiny ripples caused by my approach, I thought the puddle impossibly deep, a bottomless sea in which the lazy coil of a tentacle and gleam of scale lay hidden, with the threat of huge bodies and sharp teeth adrift and silent in the far-down depths. And then, looking down into reflection, I would see my own round face and frizzled hair against a featureless blue sweep, and think instead that the puddle was the entrance to another sky. If I stepped in there, I would drop at once, and keep on falling, on and on, into blue space. The only time I would dare walk though a puddle was at twilight, when the evening stars came out. If I looked in the water and saw one lighted pinprick there, I could slash through unafraid--for if I should fall into the puddle and on into space, I could grab hold of the star as I passed, and be safe. Even now, when I see a puddle in my path, my mind half-halts--though my feet do not--then hurries on, with only the echo of the though left behind. imagination fantasy time-travel science-fiction Diana Gabaldon
2aa3f21 Americans worship technology. It's an inherent trait in the national zeitgeist. max-brooks world-war-z zombie science-fiction zombies technology Max Brooks
8e94385 "I would like [my readers] to better understand human beings and human life as a result of having read [my] stories. I'd like them to feel that this was an experience that made things better for them and an experience that gave them hope. I think that the kind of things that we talk about at this conference -- fantasy very much so, science fiction, and even horror -- the message that we're sending is the reverse of the message sent by what is called "realistic fiction." (I happen to think that realistic fiction is not, in fact, realistic, but that's a side issue.) And what we are saying is that it doesn't have to be like this: things can be different. Our society can be changed. Maybe it's worse, maybe it's better. Maybe it's a higher civilization, maybe it's a barbaric civilization. But it doesn't have to be the way it is now. Things can change. And we're also saying things can change for you in your life. Look at the difference between Severian the apprentice and Severian the Autarch [in for example. The difference beteween Silk as an augur and Silk as calde [in fiction fantasy optimism hope science-fiction horror Gene Wolfe
ff5d3f5 Humans were still not only the cheapest robots around, but also, for many tasks, the only robots that could do the job. They were self-reproducing robots too. They showed up and worked generation after generation; give them 3000 calories a day and a few amenities, a little time off, and a strong jolt of fear, and you could work them at almost anything. Give them some ameliorative drugs and you had a working class, reified and coglike. work kim-stanley-robison robots science-fiction humans Kim Stanley Robinson
5baae7d Honor is for the living. Dead is dead. science-fiction star-wars Drew Karpyshyn
955d65f Well, I hate to admit it, but it is possible that there is (one) such a thing as telepathy and (two) that the CETI project's idea that we might communicate with extraterrestrial beings via telepathy is possibly a reasonable idea--if telepathy exists and if ETIs exist. Otherwise we are trying to communicate with someone who doesn't exist with a system which doesn't work. telepathy science-fiction Philip K. Dick
e17fd53 "There is a stillness between us, a period of restlessness that ties my stomach sex shakespeare magic rain poems romance sacrifice death dreams music songs life carrack cityisle cityspire desolate fedora haunts horace-walpole mannequins phillip-k-dick puddles specters spectre amnesia androids haunting greek-mythology waking damnation count emily-dickinson magick tempest apocalypse reflections storms masquerade empty science-fiction gothic jazz ships ghosts water piano Nathan Reese Maher
a7400f9 Tomorrow morning, he decided, I'll begin clearing away the sand of fifty thousand centuries for my first vegetable garden. That's the initial step. science-fiction Philip K. Dick
051bffb Time is the worst place, so to speak, to get lost in, as Arthur Dent could testify, having been lost in both time and space a good deal. At least being lost in space kept you busy. humour humor h2g2 hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy science-fiction Douglas Adams
2b12267 Love isn't just wanting another person the way you want to own an object you see in a store. That's just desire. You want to have it around, take it home and set it up somewhere in the apartment like a lamp. science-fiction Philip K. Dick
4339a7f "Masochism is more widespread than we realize because it takes an attenuated form. The basic dynamism is as follows: a human being sees something bad which is coming as inevitable. There is no way he can halt the process; he is helpess. This sense of helplessness generates a need to gain some control over the impending pain -- any kind of control will do. This makes sense; the subjective feeling of helplessness is more painful than the impending misery. So the person seizes control over the situation in the only way open to him: he connives to bring on the impending misery; he hastens it. This activity on his part promotes the false impression that he enjoys pain. Not so. It is simply that he cannot any longer endure the helplessness or the supposed helplessness. But in the process of gaining control over the inevitable misery he becomes, automatically, anhedonic. Anhedonia sets in stealthily. Over the years it takes control of him. For example, he learns to defer gratification; this is a step in the dismal process of anhedonia. In learning to defer he gratification he experiences a sense of self-mastery; he has become stoic, disciplined; he does not give way to impulse. He has "control". Control over himself in terms of his impulses and control over the external situation. He is a controlled and controlling person. Pretty soon he has branched out and is controlling other people, as part of the situation. He becomes a manipulator. Of course, he is not conciousily aware of this; all he intends to do is lessen his own sense of impotence. But in his task of lessening this sense, he insidiously overpowers the freedom of others. Yet, he dervies no pleasure from this, no positive psychological gain; all his gains are essential negative." science-fiction Philip K. Dick
758b2ec You barbarians!' he yelled. 'I'll sue the council for every penny it's got! I'll have you hung, drawn and quartered! And whipped! And boiled...until...until...until...until you've had enough.' Ford was running after him. Very very fast. 'And then I will do it again!' yelled Arthur, 'And when I've finished I will take all the little bits, and I will jump on them! violence humor science-fiction Douglas Adams
c5fca86 "You talk as if a god had made the Machine," cried the other. "I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is much, but not everything." -- future machine science-fiction E.M. Forster
252aefb All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. politics religion magnetism science-fiction government mythology power ideology Frank Herbert
2725a74 The thin girl was gulping down one of Richard's bananas in what was, Richard reflected, the least erotic display of banana-eating he had ever seen. science-fiction Neil Gaiman
0030350 Still, even when false, legends can be most informative. religion science-fiction star-wars Timothy Zahn
b960bdb It is easy to say that you can adopt the whole human race as your children, but it is not the same as living in a home with a child and shaping all you do to help him learn to be happy and whole and good. Don't live your life without ever holding a child in your arms, on your lap, in your home, and feeling a child's arms around you and hearing his voice in your ear and seeing his smile, given to you because you put it into your heart. family science-fiction Orson Scott Card
6b0220a You know, when I was in Paris, seeing Linter for the first time, I was standing at the top of some steps in the courtyard where Linter's place was, and I looked across it and there was a little notice on the wall saying it was forbidden to take photographs of the courtyard without the man's permission. [..] They want to own the light! observation science-fiction human-nature Iain M. Banks
c7806d3 It was just a colour out of space--a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes. science-fiction H.P. Lovecraft
fb5ec11 Three weeks hadn't changed Cop Central. The coffee was still poisonous, the noise abominable, and the view out of her stingy window was still miserable. She was thrilled to be back. romance humor j-d-robb science-fiction J.D. Robb
a03bdf1 "Bowman was aware of some changes in his behavior patterns; it would have been absurd to expect anything else in the circumstances. He could no longer tolerate silence; except when he was sleeping, or talking over the circuit to Earth, he kept the ship's sound system running at almost painful loudness. / At first, needing the companionship of the human voice, he had listened to classical plays--especially the works of Shaw, Ibsen, and Shakespeare--or poetry readings from Discovery's enormous library of recorded sounds. The problems they dealt with, however, seemed so remote, or so easily resolved with a little common sense, that after a while he lost patience with them. / So he switched to opera--usually in Italian or German, so that he was not distracted even by the minimal intellectual content that most operas contained. This phase lasted for two weeks before he realized that the sound of all these superbly trained voices was only exacerbating his loneliness. But what finally ended this cycle was Verdi's Requiem Mass, which he had never heard performed on Earth. The "Dies Irae," roaring with ominous appropriateness through the empty ship, left him completely shattered; and when the trumpets of Doomsday echoed from the heavens, he could endure no more. / Thereafter, he played only instrumental music. He started with the romantic composers, but shed them one by one as their emotional outpourings became too oppressive. Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, lasted a few weeks, Beethoven rather longer. He finally found peace, as so many others had done, in the abstract architecture of Bach, occasionally ornamented with Mozart. / And so Discovery drove on toward Saturn, as often as not pulsating with the cool music of the harpsichord, the frozen thoughts of a brain that had been dust for twice a hundred years." space science-fiction Arthur C. Clarke
00b91a8 "I can't go back," said Towser. "Nor I," said Fowler. "They would turn me back into a dog," said Towser. "And me," said Fowler, "back into a man." dogs science-fiction Clifford D. Simak
046a985 We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos.... We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. (1970 English translation) racism jingoism new-worlds imperialism space-exploration science-fiction self-image Stanisław Lem
b6dc15c The king was pregnant. feminist science-fiction gender sci-fi Ursula K. Le Guin
5434395 ...[T]he only means I have to stop ignorant snobs from behaving towards genre fiction with snobbish ignorance is to not reinforce their ignorance and snobbery by lying and saying that when I write SF it isn't SF, but to tell them more or less patiently for forty or fifty years that they are wrong to exclude SF and fantasy from literature, and proving my arguments by writing well. writing science-fiction Ursula K. Le Guin
e010c6f "It's a long story. Want a refill?" "No, let's start the steak. Where's the button?" "Right here." "Well, push it." "Me? You offered to cook." "Ben Caxton, I will lie here and starve before I will get up to push a button six inches from your finger" "As you wish." He pressed the button. "But don't forget who cooked dinner." stranger-in-a-strange-land science-fiction Robert A. Heinlein
694a90b It has occurred to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will. science-fiction Frank Herbert
f378e64 "The mice were furious." [...] "Oh yes," said the old man mildly. "Yes well so I expect were the dogs and cats and duckbilled platypuses, but..." "Ah, but they hadn't paid for it you see, had they?" "Look," said Arthur, "would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?" [...] "Earthman, the planet you lived on was commissioned, paid for, and run by mice. It was destroyed five minutes before the completion of the purpose for which it was built, and we've got to build another one." Only one word registered with Arthur. "Mice?" he said. "Indeed Earthman." "Look, sorry - are we talking about the little white furry things with the cheese fixation and women standing on tables screaming in early sixties sit coms?" Slartibartfast coughed politely. "[...] These creatures you call mice, you see, they are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vast hyperintelligent pandimensional beings. The whole business with the cheese and the squeaking is just a front." The old man paused, and with a sympathetic frown continued. "They've been experimenting on you, I'm afraid." humour science-fiction Douglas Adams
7157ae4 "No," he said, "look, it's very, very simple ... all I want ... is a cup of tea. You are going to make one for me. Keep quiet and listen." And he sat. He told the Nutri-Matic about India, he told it about China, he told it about Ceylon. He told it about broad leaves drying in the sun. He told it about silver teapots. He told it about summer afternoons on the lawn. He told it about putting in the milk before the tea so it wouldn't get scalded. He even told it (briefly) about the history of the East India Company. "So that's it, is it?" said the Nutri-Matic when he had finished. "Yes," said Arthur, "that is what I want." "You want the taste of dried leaves in boiled water?" "Er, yes. With milk." science-fiction Douglas Adams
445a838 "Nothing could go wrong because nothing had...I meant "nothing would." No - Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive situations - conjugations that would make the French literary tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple." humor time-travel science-fiction Robert A. Heinlein
8a9d20a I know, i know. You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was younger I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the times I was fort my blunt instrument has been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hid your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ray-bradbury science-fiction Ray Bradbury
bb77cbf The kid is scary. kids space science-fiction Orson Scott Card
b1cc25a In case you haven't noticed, they're moving a lot faster. I don't know about the laws of physics on your planet, but where I come from an object moving at subclass speed can't catch up to one running at starclass. But if you know something about turbines, thrusters and engines, quantum or classical physics that I've somehow missed, then please enlighten me. - Caillen Dagan to Desideria Denarii romance desideria sherrilyn-kenyon science-fiction Sherrilyn Kenyon
2638669 I don't speak, I operate a machine called language. It creaks and groans, but is mine own. profound science-fiction Frank Herbert
7696824 Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid intercourse, from which the previous civilization had hoped so much, had ended by defeating itself. What was the good of going to Peking when it was just like Shrewsbury? Why return to Shrewsbury when it would all be like Peking? Men seldom moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul. travel future unrest machine civilisation civilization science-fiction soul E.M. Forster
2cb476e "History doesn't start with a tall building sex shakespeare magic rain poems romance sacrifice death dreams music songs life carrack cityisle cityspire desolate fedora haunts horace-walpole mannequins phillip-k-dick puddles specters spectre amnesia androids haunting greek-mythology waking damnation count emily-dickinson magick tempest apocalypse reflections storms masquerade empty science-fiction gothic jazz ships ghosts water piano Nathan Reese Maher
10c2a5f "Sometimes I think Earth has got to be the insane asylum of the universe. . . and I'm here by computer error. At sixty-eight, I hope I've gained some wisdom in the past fourteen lustrums and it's obligatory to speak plain and true about the conclusions I've come to; now that I have been educated to believe by such mentors as Wells, Stapledon, Heinlein, van Vogt, Clarke, Pohl, (S. Fowler) Wright, Orwell, Taine, Temple, Gernsback, Campbell and other seminal influences in scientifiction, I regret the lack of any female writers but only Radclyffe Hall opened my eyes outside sci-fi. fairy-tales morality science hope humanist belief science-fiction secular danger utopia atheist respect sci-fi Forrest J. Ackerman
bf651cc A person is what he says and does; that's how you learn whether his reputation was earned or manufactured. young-adult reputation science-fiction Orson Scott Card
c201179 Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time. weird science-fiction H.P. Lovecraft
8b66508 So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labour. Once they were there, they would no doubt have to pay rent, and not a little of it, for the ventilation of their caverns; and if they refused, they would starve or be suffocated for arrears. Such of them as were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die; and, in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors would become as well adapted to the conditions of underground life, and as happy in their way, as the Upper-world people were to theirs. prophesy dystopia science-fiction H.G. Wells
2539cb2 Perhaps I am a man of exceptional moods. I do not know how far my experience is common. At times I suffer from the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all. time the-war-of-the-worlds space science-fiction H.G. Wells
8e752c8 In all the known history of Mankind, advances have been made primarily in physical technology; in the capacity of handling the inanimate world about Man. Control of self and society has been left to to chance or to the vague gropings of intuitive ethical systems based on inspiration and emotion. As a result no culture of greater stability than about fifty-five percent has ever existed, and these only as the result of great human misery. science-fiction society Isaac Asimov
145c9ef I tell you it's deadly when you start thinking your wife might be right. science-fiction Isaac Asimov
2791569 The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary. Having that real though limited power to put established institutions into question, imaginative literature has also the responsibility of power. The storyteller is the truthteller. story literature imagination science-fiction Ursula K. Le Guin
684df1f Those wanderers must have looked on Earth, circling safely in the narrow zone between fire and ice, and must have guessed that it was the favourite of the Sun's children. science-fiction Arthur C. Clarke
53753bb "Having to amuse myself during those earlier years, I read voraciously and widely. Mythic matter and folklore made up much of that reading--retellings of the old stories ( ), anecdotal collections and historical investigations of the stories' backgrounds--and then I stumbled upon the books which took me back to and the like. I was in heaven when began the Unicorn imprint for Ballantine and scoured the other publishers for similar good finds, delighting when I discovered someone like , who still remains a favourite. This was before there was such a thing as a fantasy genre, when you'd be lucky to have one fantasy book published in a month, little say the hundreds per year we have now. I also found myself reading (the Cormac and Bran mac Morn books were my favourites), and finally started reading science fiction after coming across 's Huon of the Horn. That book wasn't sf, but when I went to read more by her, I discovered everything else was. So I tried a few and that led me to and any number of other fine sf writers. These days my reading tastes remain eclectic, as you might know if you've been following my monthly book review column in . I'm as likely to read as as as reading books fantasy book-genres recommendations sf science-fiction sci-fi influences Charles de Lint
accc7bc But Mother, I don't want to go. It's just that...I have to. I can't spend the rest of my life hiding in the attic. [...] I don't want to be a burden[...]I want to do something with my life. Figure out ways to help other third kids. Make--make a difference in the world. fiction distopia science-fiction Margaret Peterson Haddix
03d9ca7 She'd learned to live in the present a long time ago, to enjoy every moment she had. Time was a luxury, something she knew she could run out of very quickly, so she made sure each minute counted for something. romance science-fiction paranormal Christine Feehan
04e3ddf Draden drank in his surroundings with both appreciation and sorrow. The beautiful path led to a village that should have been thriving. Instead, it was now a path to certain death. romance science-fiction paranormal Christine Feehan
671f8f2 ... we have created a man with not one brain but two. ... This new brain is intended to control the biological brain. ... The patient's biological brain is the peripheral terminal -- the only peripheral terminal -- for the new computer. ... And therefore the patient's biological brain, indeed his whole body, has become a terminal for the new computer. We have created a man who is one single, large, complex computer terminal. The patient is a read-out device for the new computer, and is helpless to control the readout as a TV screen is helpless to control the information presented on it. computers science-fiction Michael Crichton
fe0aaee And the Flatline aligned the nose of Kuang's sting with the center of the dark below. And dove. Case's sensory input warped with their velocity. His mouth filled with an aching taste of blue. His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sounds of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine spines. The spines split, bisected, split again, exponential growth under the dome of the Tessier-Ashpool ice. future science matrix science-fiction William Gibson
c1a34e1 They are not free at all. They are essentially our prisoners. prisoners science-fiction Michael Crichton
afa2c4b Every vice of the Empire has been repeated in the Foundation. Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law; no change. Despotism! They know one rule; force. Maldistribution! They know one desire; to hold what is theirs. foundation science-fiction Isaac Asimov
e57bbea There's a sameness to streetlife. On every world I've ever been, the same underlying patterns play out, flaunt and vaunt, buy and sell, like some distilled essence of human behavior seeping out from whatever clanking political machine has been dropped on it from above. political human-behaviour patterns planets streetlife worlds science-fiction machines Richard K. Morgan
8095bd1 Why travel to the Moon or Mars if we only continue our wars there with Russia or China or Africa? Why build rockets at all? For fun? For adventure? Or is this the same process that sends the salmons back upstream year after year to spawn and die - a subliminal urge in mankind to spread, in self-preservation, to the stars? Are we then secretly fearful that one day the sun might freeze and the the earth grow cold or the sun explode in a terrific thermal cataclysm and burn down our house of cards? space-travel science-fiction Ray Bradbury
1f3ba12 On a world where a common table implement is a little device with which you crack the ice that has formed on your drink between drafts, hot beer is a thing you come to appreciate. humour science-fiction Ursula K. Le Guin
e101a5b "Dina, I'm bored," Caldenia announced. Too bad. I guaranteed her safety, not entertainment. "What about your game?" Her Grace gave me a shrug. "I've beaten it five times on the Deity setting. I've reduced Paris to ashes because Napoleon annoyed me. I've eradicated Gandhi. I've crushed George Washington. Empress Wu had potential, so I eliminated her before we even cleared Bronze Age. The Egyptians are my pawns. I dominate the planet. Oddly, I find myself mildly fascinated by Genghis Khan. A shrewd and savage warrior, possessing a certain magnetism. I left him with a single city, and I periodically make ridiculous demands that I know he can't meet so I can watch him squirm." science-fiction urban-fantasy Ilona Andrews
04619f1 Fish and visitors stink after three days. science-fiction Ursula K. Le Guin
d560208 "Two men who had never seen each other before and would not likely see each other again. But their sincerity and sweetness, their sharing an instant in a fleeting life. It was almost as if a secret had passed between them. Was this some kind of love? I wanted to follow them, to touch them, to tell them of my happiness. I wanted to whisper to them: 'This is it. This is it'"." universe religion science-fiction Alan Lightman
6e9cbf3 "She leaves my side and heads deeper into sex shakespeare magic rain poems romance sacrifice death dreams music songs life carrack cityisle cityspire desolate fedora haunts horace-walpole mannequins phillip-k-dick puddles specters spectre amnesia androids haunting greek-mythology waking damnation count emily-dickinson magick tempest apocalypse reflections storms masquerade empty science-fiction gothic jazz ships ghosts water piano Nathan Reese Maher
abca5c4 Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men. A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows hunger. philosophy science-fiction psychology Daniel Keyes
09301ff He was set on having her for the rest of his life, no matter how long or little that was, but he could see, if she agreed, he was going to have his hands full. romance science-fiction paranormal Christine Feehan
e38637b "The art of fiction has not changed much since prehistoric times. The formula for telling a powerful story has remained the same: create a strong character, a person of great strengths, capable of deep emotions and decisive action. Give him a weakness. Set him in conflict with another powerful character -- or perhaps with nature. Let his exterior conflict be the mirror of the protagonist's own interior conflict, the clash of his desires, his own strength against his own weakness. And there you have a story. Whether it's Abraham offering his only son to God, or Paris bringing ruin to Troy over a woman, or Hamlet and Claudius playing their deadly game, Faust seeking the world's knowledge and power -- the stories that stand out in the minds of the reader are those whose characters are unforgettable. role-of-the-writer science-fiction Ben Bova
de86715 What is it in humans that makes us so eager to believe ill of one another? ... What makes us so hungry for it? Failed idealism, he suspected. We disappoint ourselves and then look around for other failures to convince ourselves: it's not just me. (15) science-fiction Mary Doria Russell
f30c4a4 "Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding. writing worldbuilding science-fiction M. John Harrison
5a1f85d He had been trying to measure the distance between the earth and God. irony science-fiction Ursula K. Le Guin
15084e0 Imagine that every man's mind is an island, surrounded by ocean. Each seems isolated, yet in reality all are linked by the bedrock from which they spring. If the ocean were to vanish, that would be the end of the islands. They would all be part of one continent, but the individuality would have gone conciousness science-fiction Arthur C. Clarke
53e6280 Vashti was seized with the terrors of direct experience. She shrank back into the room, and the wall closed up again. machine science-fiction isolation E.M. Forster
8f928c1 In 's ... it was in that novel that, for the first time, I learned Neptune had a satellite named Triton... It was from that I first learned there was a Mato Grosso area in the Amazon basin. It was from and other stories by that I first heard of relativity. The pleasure of reading about such things in the dramatic and fascinating form of science fiction gave me a push toward science that was irresistible. It was science fiction that made me want to be a scientist strongly enough to eventually make me one. That is not to say that science fiction stories can be completely trusted as a source of specific knowledge... However, the misguidings of science fiction can be unlearned. Sometimes the unlearning process is not easy, but it is a low price to pay for the gift of fascination over science. science golden-age-science-fiction golden-age-sf pulp-fiction science-fiction Isaac Asimov
06687c5 "Changelessness is decay." "A paradox. There is no decay without a change for the worse." "Changelessness is a change for the worse" kelden-amadiro vasilia-aliena robots science-fiction Isaac Asimov
e4432d2 Night and day, wind and storm, tide and earthquake, impeded man no longer. He had harnessed Leviathan. All the old literature, with its praise of Nature, and its fear of Nature, rang false as the prattle of a child. man nature future leviathan science-fiction E.M. Forster
8eb1e49 By and large, the kind of science fiction which makes tomorrow's headlines as near as this morning's coffee has enlarged popular awareness of the modern, miraculous world of science we live in. It has helped generations of young people feel at age with a changing world. But fashions change, old loves return, and now that Sputniks clutter up the sky with new and unfamiliar moons, the readers of science fiction are willing to wait to read tomorrow's headlines. Once again, I think, there is a place, a wish, a need for the wonder and color of the world way out. The world beyond the stars. The world we won't live to see. That is why I wrote . the-future science-fiction Marion Zimmer Bradley
171d740 The entire history of mankind is problem solving, or science fiction swallowing ideas, digesting them, and excreting formulas for survival. You can't have one without the other. No fantasy, no reality. No studies concerning loss, no gain. No imagination, no will. No impossible dreams: No possible solutions. fiction imagination science science-fiction Ray Bradbury
44a417b "And Elvex said, "I was the man." - In "Robot dreams" (Short story)" science-fiction Isaac Asimov
157ca09 "Meteorites don't fall on the Earth. They fall on the Sun and the Earth gets in the way." - John W. Campbell" science science-fiction Arthur C. Clarke
56aaf8b Life is a physics problem. Bodies in motion. science-fiction Robin Wasserman
783c539 Yes, I was scared of the Daleks and the Zarbi and the rest, but I was taking other, stranger, more important lessons away from my Saturday tea time serial. For a start, I became infected by the idea that there are an infinite number of worlds only a foot step away. And another part of the meme was this- some things are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside. And perhaps some people are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside as well. And that was only the start of it. science-fiction Neil Gaiman
4c8d46b "That's a stupid name! Whirly-gig is much better, I think. Who in their right mind would point at this thing and say, 'I'm going to fly in my Model-A1'. sex shakespeare magic rain poems romance sacrifice death dreams music songs life carrack cityisle cityspire desolate fedora haunts horace-walpole mannequins phillip-k-dick puddles specters spectre amnesia androids haunting greek-mythology waking damnation count emily-dickinson magick tempest apocalypse reflections storms masquerade empty science-fiction gothic jazz ships ghosts water piano Nathan Reese Maher
df23bb3 What sort of an imaginary voice is that? I asked myself, suppose Columbus had heard an imaginary voice telling him to sail west. And because of it he had discovered the New World and changed human history... We would be hard put to defend the use of the term 'imaginary' then, for that voice, since the consequences of its speaking came to affect us all. Which would have constituted greater reality, an 'imaginary' voice telling him to sail west, or a 'real' voice telling him the idea was hopeless? science-fiction Philip K. Dick
e0adeb0 There are rules to everything, even if nobody made them up, even if nobody calls it a game. And if you want things to work out well, it's best to know the rules and only break them if you're playing a different game and following those rules. science-fiction Orson Scott Card
97e2230 The red tongues that went licking up my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena. humor science-fiction H.G. Wells
9d9fb9a "If patterns of ones and zeroes were "like" patterns of human lives and deaths, if everything about an individual could be represented in a computer record by a long strings of ones and zeroes, then what kind of creature could be represented by a long string of lives and deaths?" science computers science-fiction Thomas Pynchon
2d56167 El misterio de la vida no es problema que hay que resolver, sino una realidad que hay que experimentar. existence reality life existencial dune science-fiction realidad vida Frank Herbert
5d2c756 I am a leg of the death tripod that will destroy our foes. science-fiction Frank Herbert
62bbde3 Most discipline is hidden discipline, designed not to liberate but to limit. Do not ask Why? Be cautious with How? Why? leads inexorably to paradox. How? traps you in a universe of cause and effect. Both deny the infinite. religion science-fiction Frank Herbert
9b32798 Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent mutual regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it. religion meaning-of-life science-fiction existentialism ethics prophecy mythology Frank Herbert
6147d50 [The Void Which Binds] actual but unaccessible presence in our universe is one of the prime causes for our species elaborating myth and religion, for our stubborn, blind belief in extrasensory powers, in telepathy and precognition, in demons and demigods and resurrection and reincarnation and ghosts and messiahs and so many other categories of almost-but-not-quite satisfying bullshit. philosophical science-fiction satirical Dan Simmons
e8eda2e Life's more science-fictiony by the day. science-fiction David Mitchell
0124366 Draden didn't move, staying as still as any predator with his gaze fixed on his prey. No muscle moved. romance science-fiction paranormal Christine Feehan
cf0eefe "My peony," he emphasized. "And it's only for us, no one else." He liked the intimacy of having a special name for her no one else knew but the two of them." romance science-fiction paranormal Christine Feehan
73db19f Draden was hers. The one. The only. She didn't know how she knew it, but she did know that nothing in her life was truer. romance science-fiction paranormal Christine Feehan
8b5372b I detested that people who already had everything they could possibly want would step on others who had nothing. Would use them and crush them. I'd lived my life mainly in the streets and found out the hard way that people who could have helped just hurt us. romance science-fiction paranormal Christine Feehan
e627915 "I don't think I've actually seen you smile before, " Wyatt observed. "This woman must be the real deal to teach you how to smile." romance science-fiction paranormal Christine Feehan
6da0282 That's all science fiction was ever about. Hating the way things are, wanting to make things different. difference science-fiction Ray Bradbury
d7d1dc7 Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts. They go back to religious ideas of Free Will and are related to the Ruler Mystique implicit in absolute monarchs. Without absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have gained their present meaning. These ideals owe their very existence to past examples of oppression. And the forces that maintain such ideas will erode unless renewed by dramatic teaching or new oppressions. This is the most basic key to my life. freedom religion social-science post-apocalyptic liberty science-fiction theology mythology tyranny power ideology Frank Herbert
06314bd "...She wasn't anyone special. She wasn't that brave, that clever or that strong. She was just somebody that felt cramped by the confines of her life. She was just somebody who had to get out. And she did it! She went out past Vega, out past Moulquet and Lambard! She saw places that aren't even there anymore! And do you know what she said? Her most famous quotation? "Anybody could have done it" -- inspirational science-fiction Alan Moore
c5bd091 "I go on writing in both respectable and despised genres because I respect them all, rejoice in their differences, and reject only the prejudice and ignorance that dismisses any book, unread, as not worth reading." -- "On Despising Genres," essay" science-fiction Ursula K. Le Guin
0cf4287 Tom is a filthy little pustule. If you quote me, I'll deny it! science-fiction Nancy Farmer
7f860d1 To use the enemy's weapon is to play the enemy's game...speak the truth and hear the truth. science-fiction Ursula K. Le Guin
60be6fd "We came back [from Mars]," Pris said, "because nobody should have to live there. It wasn't conceived for habitation, at least not within the last billion years. It's so old. You feel it in the stones, the terrible old age. Anyhow, at first I got drugs from Roy; I lived for that new synthetic pain-killer, that silenizine. And then I met Horst Hartman, who at that time ran a stamp store, rare postage stamps; there's so much time on your hands that you've got to have a hobby, something you can pore over endlessly. And Horst got me interested in pre-colonial fiction." "You mean old books?" "Stories written before space travel but about space travel." "How could there have been stories about space travel before - " "The writers," Pris said, "made it up." "Based on what?" "On imagination. A lot of times they turned out wrong [...] Anyhow, there's a fortune to be made in smuggling pre-colonial fiction, the old magazines and books and films, to Mars. Nothing is as exciting. To read about cities and huge industrial enterprises, and really successful colonization. You can imagine what it might have been like. What Mars ought to be like. Canals." "Canals?" Dimly, he remembered reading about that; in the olden days they had believed in canals on Mars. "Crisscrossing the planet," Pris said. "And beings from other stars. With infinite wisdom. And stories about Earth, set in our time and even later. Where there's no radioactive dust." [...] "Did you bring any of that pre-colonial reading material back with you?" It occurred to him that he ought to try some. "It's worthless, here, because here on Earth the craze never caught on. Anyhow there's plenty here, in the libraries; that's where we get all of ours - stolen from libraries here on Earth and shot by autorocket to Mars. You're out at night humbling across the open space, and all of a sudden you see a flare, and there's a rocket, cracked open, with old pre-colonial fiction magazines spilling out everywhere. A fortune. But of course you read them before you sell them." She warmed to her topic. "Of all -" time science-fiction Philip K. Dick
01912a0 He could see the tall, peeling yellow building at the periphery of his range of vision. But something about it struck him as strange. A shimmer, an unsteadiness, as if the building faded forward into stability and then retreated into insubstantial uncertainty. An oscillation, each phase lasting a few seconds and then blurring off into its opposite, a fairly regular variability as if an organic pulsation underlay the structure. As if, he thought, it's alive. ubik science-fiction Philip K. Dick
e54bc18 He had the impression of Shylah pouting, and that made him happy. Just talking to her made him happy. The fact that she would circle around, hunt and find the man watching from the forest, was a complete turn-on. He liked that this woman would be his partner. romance science-fiction paranormal Christine Feehan
2498046 She had to know, soon or later, that he was no saint and never would be. He loved her, but if she was going to stay with him, she had to know the worst of him. He wanted honesty between them. romance science-fiction paranormal Christine Feehan
23296c1 Will these millions of children, for generations upon future generations, know that some of their atoms cycled through this woman? [...] Will they feel what she felt in her life, will their memories have flickering strokes of her memories, will they recall that moment long ago when she stood by the window, guilt ridden and confused, and watched as the tadr bird circled the cistern? No, it is not possible. [...] But I will let them have their own brief glimpse of the Void, just at that moment they pass from living to dead, from animate to inanimate, from consciousness to that which has no consciousness. For a moment, they will understand infinity. death religion science-fiction Alan Lightman
6f09ad0 Some readers may realize that this story, first published in 1956, has been overtaken by events. In 1965, astronomers discovered that Mercury does not keep one side always to the Sun, but has a period of rotation of about fifty-four days, so that all parts of it are exposed to the sunlight at one time or another. Well, what can I do except say that I wish astronomers would get things right to begin with? And I certainly refuse to change the story to suit their whims. the-dying-night asimov isaac-asimov isaac science-fiction Isaac Asimov
fa3b41e "Mr Baley", said Quemot, "you can't treat human emotions as though they were built about a positronic brain". "I'm not saying you can. Robotics is a deductive science and sociology an inductive one. But mathematics can be made to apply in either case." robotics science-fiction sociology Isaac Asimov
6a7e23b He pointed to another number, changing as rapidly as the first, but on a lower trajectory; it rose to a high of 8.79 rem per hour. Several lifetimes of dentists' X-rays, to be sure; but the radiation outside the storm shelter would have been a lethal dose, so they were getting off lightly. Still, the amount flying through the rest of the ship! Billions of particles were penetrating the ship and colliding with the atoms of water and metal they were huddled behind; hundreds of millions were flying between these atoms and then through the atoms of their bodies, touching nothing, as if they were no more than ghosts. Still, thousands were striking atoms of flesh and bone. Most of those collisions were harmless; but in all those thousands, there were in all probability one or two (or three?) in which a chromosome strand was taking a hit, and kinking in the wrong way: and there it was. Tumor initiation, begun with just that typo in the book of the self. And years later, unless the victim's DNA luckily repaired itself, the tumor promotion that was a more or less unavoidable part of living would have its effect, and there would appear a bloom of Something Else inside: cancer. Leukemia, most likely; and, most likely, death. science-fiction Kim Stanley Robinson
f412b42 Humans would never tell the simple truth when a lie was available.... karen-traviss science-fiction Karen Traviss
cdf0db5 Reputation never has very much to do with reality. I could name half a dozen paragons of virtue that are horrible, small-souled, evil people. And some of the best men I know, you'd walk out of the room if you heard their names. No one on the screen is who they are when you breathe their air. Chrisjen Avasarala reputation-quotes the-expanse science-fiction James S.A. Corey
0763c1a Once, I believed that space could have no power over faith, just as I believed the heavens declared the glory of God's handwork. Now I have seen that handwork, and my faith is sorely troubled. religion science-fiction sci-fi Arthur C. Clarke
a683024 I think of us as a people who inoculate ourselves against a plague of insanity with a powerful anti-idiotic called science fiction. I think sf is a literature which by its very nature requires that you be at least a little sane, that you know at least a little something. You must abdicate the right to be ignorant in order to enjoy science fiction, which most people are unwilling to do; and you must learn, if not actually how to think things through, at least what the trick looks like when it's done. Frequent injections will keep a lot of madness away. sanity science-fiction Spider Robinson
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