My briefest ever definition of science fiction is ‘Hubris clobbered by Nemesis.’
What were several fewer species of animals compared with a hundred-mile advance and another medal on another general?
Science fiction is for real, space opera is for fun.
Why had I become a writer in the first place? Because I wasn’t fit for society; I didn’t fit into the system.
I am a writer and always was; being a writer is an integral part of my identity. Being published, being well regarded, is a component of that identity.
Most SF is about madness, or what is currently ruled to be madness; this is part of its attraction – it’s always playing with how much the human mind can encompass.
I was hardly fit for human society. Thus destiny shaped me to be a science fiction writer.
Most of my poetry lies beyond the SF field, yet here I am corralled into ‘SF poetry’ as part of this poetry weekend. Of course, some might say, ‘you’ve made your own bed – now you must lie in it!’ But, while fully accepting that dictum, I’m not yet quite prepared to lie down...
Obeying an inalienable law, things grew, growing riotous and strange in their impulse for growth.
Man was an accident on this world or it would have been made better for him!
It’s a national failing to think of politics as something that goes on in Parliament. It isn’t; it’s something that goes on inside us.
To read is to strike a blow for culture.
An overcrowded world is the ideal place in which to be lonely.
Life on the big slope was endurable, and sometimes more than just endurable, for the human spirit was a genius for making mountains out of molehills of happiness.
Evil is loose in the world. I have to go.” “I don’t believe in evil. Mistakes, yes. Not evil.” “Then perhaps you are afraid to believe it exists. It exists wherever men are. It.
On Mars, Venus, Mercury, and the moons of Jupiter, human beings were more free – free to found their own petty nations and ruin their own lives their own way. But.
I love you and I feel sad just like real people, so I must be human... Mustn’t I?
I feel happy or sad. I love people. Therefore I am human. Isn’t that so?
Violence was regarded as an acceptable solution to many problems which would never have originated had violence not been in the air in the first place.
It occurred to him that perhaps all his life he had only been hearing echoes of himself, and that his morality, on which he had once prided himself, was merely a refusal to permit other people into his life.
Laintal Ay, you also have an inwardness to your nature. I feel it. That inwardness will distress you, yet it gives you life, it is life.