Science Fiction Quotes

• For me science fiction is a way of thinking, a way of logic that bypasses a lot of nonsense. It allows people to look directly at important subjects.

  Gene Roddenberry

  Thinking, People, Important

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• I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and say to myself "well, that's not going to happen

  Rita Rudner

  Hilarious, Cooking, Kitchen

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• The real universe is always one step beyond logic.

  Frank Herbert

  Real, Steps, Logic

  Frank Herbert (2003). “Dune”, p.323, Penguin

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• Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.

  J. G. Ballard

  Reality, Sprung Up, Fiction

  "Fictions of Every Kind" (1971)

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• If science fiction is the mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Writing, Technology, Fiction

  Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.169, Grove Press

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• Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Science, Political, Fiction

  "The Making of Kubrick's 2001". Book by Jerome Agel, 1970.

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• Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. ...Science fiction is central to everything we've ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don't know what they're talking about.

  Ray Bradbury

  Fun, Talking, Civilization

  Brown Daily Herald, March 24, 1995.

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• In sci-fi convention, life-forms that hadn't developed space travel were mere prehistory -- horse-shoe crabs of the cosmic scene -- and something of the humiliation of being stuck on a provincial planet in a galactic backwater has stayed with me ever since.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Horse, Shoes, Space

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1990). “WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”, Pantheon

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• Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.

  Susan Sontag

  Art, Science, Fiction

  "Against Interpretation and Other Essays" by Susan Sontag, (p. 212), 1966.

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• I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled "Science Fiction" ... and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Mistake, Fiction, Serious

  "Science Fiction". The New York Times Book Review, September 5, 1965.

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• Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything.

  Philip K. Dick

  Sorry, Writing, Fiction

  Philip K. Dick (1985). “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon”, Doubleday Books

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• I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

  Frank Herbert

  Inspirational, Motivational, Death

  Frank Herbert (2010). “Heretics Of Dune: The Fifth Dune Novel”, p.10, Hachette UK

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• Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful.

  Philip K. Dick

  Sorry, Writing, Fiction

  Philip K. Dick (1985). “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon”, Doubleday Books

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• Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Science, Fiction

  1975 'How Easy To See The Future', in Natural History, Apr.

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• Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Essence, Fiction Stories

  "My Own View". "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction". Book edited by Robert Holdstock, 1978.

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• Science fiction is the search for a definition of mankind and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post Gothic mode.

  Brian Aldiss

  Confused, Fiction, Definitions

  Brian Wilson Aldiss (1995). “The Detached Retina: Aspects of SF and Fantasy”, p.72, Syracuse University Press

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• Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.

  Doris Lessing

  Time, Space, Fiction

  The Guardian (London), November 7, 1988.

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• Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.

  Eric Hoffer

  Self, Miracle, Corny

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.

  Stephen Hawking

  Travel, Space, Rockets

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• To almost no one's surprise, Astrid said, "Dune, by Frank Herbert. 'I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that bring total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the Fear has gone there will be nothing.'" She and Lana together spoke the last phrase of the incantation. "'Only I will remain.

  Michael Grant

  Fear, Eye, Past

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• When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction.

  Steven Wright

  Death, Fun, Science

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• FEAR IS THE MIND-KILLER. FEAR IS THE LITTLE-DEATH THAT BRINGS TOTAL OBLITERATION.

  Frank Herbert

  Fear, Fantasy Novels, Scary

  Frank Herbert (2003). “Dune”, p.203, Penguin

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• One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a flexibility of the mind. Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Pain, Future, Science

  "The Making of Kubrick's 2001". Book by Jerome Agel, 1970.

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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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• Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn't exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.

  Ray Bradbury

  Art, Writing, Ideas

  Ray Bradbury, Sam Weller (2012). “Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews”, p.284, Melville House

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