Frederik Pohl Quotes

• A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.

  Frederik Pohl

  Fiction Stories, Able, Jam

  57 Copy quote

• You can't really predict the future. All you can do is invent it.

  Frederik Pohl

  Can Do

  "Frederik Pohl, grandmaster of science fiction, dies aged 93" by David Barnettt, www.theguardian.com. September 3, 2013.

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• You don't think progress goes in a straight line, do you? Do you recognize that it is an ascending, accelerating, maybe even exponential curve? It takes hell's own time to get started, but when it goes it goes like a bomb.

  Frederik Pohl

  Science, Thinking, Curves

  Frederik Pohl (1975). “The best of Frederik Pohl”, Sidgwick & Jackson

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• That's what life is, just one learning experience after another, and when you're through with all the learning experiences you graduate and what you get for a diploma is, you die.

  Frederik Pohl

  Life, Diploma, Graduates

  "Gateway". Book by Frederik Pohl, 1978.

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• For someone to be taken seriously it was valuable to have the appearance of someone who deserved to be taken seriously.

  Frederik Pohl

  Taken, Appearance, Valuable

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• I did that for 40 years or more. I never had any writer's block. I got up in the morning, sat down at the typewriter - now, computer - lit up a cigarette.

  Frederik Pohl

  Morning, Block, Typewriters

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• The future depicted in a good SF story ought to be in fact possible, or at least plausible. That means that the writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true... and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you.

  Frederik Pohl

  Mean, Looks, Stories

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• That's really what SF is all about, you know: the big reality that pervades the real world we live in: the reality of change. Science fiction is the very literature of change. In fact, it is the only such literature we have.

  Frederik Pohl

  Real, Fiction, Literature

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• You can't trust reason. We threw it out of the ad profession long ago and have never missed it.

  Frederik Pohl

  Long Ago, Reason, Profession

  Frederik Pohl, Cyril M. Kornbluth (1984). “Venus, Inc”

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• The science fiction method is dissection and reconstruction.

  Frederik Pohl

  Fiction, Dissection, Method

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• Science fiction is the very literature of change.

  Frederik Pohl

  Fiction, Literature, Science Fiction

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• People as me how I do research for my science fiction. The answer is, I never do any research.

  Frederik Pohl

  Writing, People, Research

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• On this day I want to tell you about, which will be about a thousand years from now, there were a boy, a girl and a love story.

  Frederik Pohl

  Girl, Boys, Years

  Frederik Pohl (1977). “The Best of Frederik Pohl”, Taplinger Publishing Company

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• I'm doing a book, 'Chasing Science,' about the pleasures of science as a spectator sport.

  Frederik Pohl

  Sports, Book, Pleasure

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• When I sit down to the feast of life ... I'm so busy planning on how to pick up the check, and wondering what the other people think of me for paying it, and wondering if I have enough money in my pocket to pay the bill, that I don't get around to eating.

  Frederik Pohl

  Life, Thinking, People

  5 Copy quote

• Advertising reaches out to touch the fantasy part of people's lives. And you know, most people's fantasies are pretty sad.

  Frederik Pohl

  People, Advertising, Fantasy

  "The Way the Future Was: A Memoir". Book by Frederik Pohl, 1978.

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• If you don't care about science enough to be interested in it on its own, you shouldn't try to write hard science fiction. You can write like Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison as much as you want.

  Frederik Pohl

  Writing, Trying, Rays

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• They were two lovely choices. One of them meant giving up every chance of a decent life forever...and the other one scared me out of my mind.

  Frederik Pohl

  Giving Up, Two, Choices

  "Gateway". Book by Frederik Pohl, April 1977.

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• My first thought was always a cigarette. It still is, but I haven't cheated.

  Frederik Pohl

  Cheating, Firsts, Cigarette

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• What were we doing here? Traveling hundreds or thousands of light-years, to break our hearts?

  Frederik Pohl

  Heart, Light, Years

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• It's clear that science and science fiction have overlapping populations.

  Frederik Pohl

  Population, Fiction, Clear

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• I was thinking of writing a little foreword saying that history is, after all, based on people's recollections, which change with time.

  Frederik Pohl

  Writing, Thinking, People

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• I'm pretty catholic about what constitutes science fiction.

  Frederik Pohl

  Catholic, Fiction, Science Fiction

  8 Copy quote

• The big new development in my life is, when I turned 80, I decided I no longer have to do four pages a day. For me, it's like retiring.

  Frederik Pohl

  New Day, Development, Four

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• In terms of stories I would buy for a science fiction magazine, if they take place in the future, that might do it.

  Frederik Pohl

  Fiction, Stories, Magazines

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