Science Fiction Quotes

Wells is teaching us to think. Burroughs and his lesser imitators are teaching us not to think. Of course, Burroughs is teaching us to wonder. The sense of wonder is in essence a religious state, blanketing out criticism. Wells was always a critic, even in his most wondrous and romantic tales.And there, I believe, the two poles of modern fantasy stand defined. At one pole wait Wells and his honorable predecessors such as Swift; at the other, Burroughs and the commercial producers, such as Otis Adelbart Kline, and the weirdies, and horror merchants such as H.P. Lovecraft, and so all the way past Tolkien to today's non-stop fantasy worlders. Mary Shelley stands somewhere at the equator of this metaphor.

~ Brian W. Aldiss

Neither in the deepest ocean Nor in the perpetual snowHeaven was on earth that dayFor some reason we are yet to know

~ Sameer Kumar

Men cry not for themselves, but for their comrades

~ Loveless

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.

~ Ursula K. Le Guin

There's about six original people in the world. The rest of everybody else are copycats. When it comes to religion and politics, ninety percent of people do what their parents did and think they made up their minds for themselves. They watch the news to see what the latest trends are.

~ Roland Merullo

Junk?” Lina repeated, incredulous. Oh, she wasn’t about to let that pass.

~ Jaleigh Johnson

Whatever you do, don’t make it worse by trying to come up with some flimsy excuse for why you were in the ventilation shaft, Lina told herself.

~ Jaleigh Johnson

Normally, she would never wish a head injury on anyone, but it might make her days in Archival Studies a bit easier.

~ Jaleigh Johnson

How else do I describe what I see…what I feel? When I look at a plant, I do not see a green object. I see Life. I see energy. I see a will to exist like no other. When I see an animal, I see more than fur and bone and blood. I see Love. Love is all around us. And in us. And through us. Love is us. It is everywhere. I see it. I feel it. I hear it. I only wish all of you could, too. If you could experience what I do every moment of every day, there would be no anger, no hate, no killing. I want to share what I know with the entire universe, but my words fall on deaf ears. People go right on fighting and hating and killing. And there is nothing I can do.

~ Simon Skiles

History judged causes' greatness proportionally by how many individuals ,themselves powerless to affect any outcomes of consequence, suffered and died in their service.

~ Victor Milán

You’re too much of a bitch to go gently into that good night.”“You should put that on a greeting card.

~ Se Zbasnik

Space: the gaping hole between land and other land.

~ Se Zbasnik

Hindsight isn’t a super power.

~ Se Zbasnik

Approach everything with a careful tongue. - Elder God from The Thousand Years War

~ Angel Ramon Medina

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.

~ Ray Bradbury

Dust is not a constant. There’s not a fixed quantity that has always been the same. Conscious beings make Dust—they renew it all the time, by thinking and feeling and reflecting, by gaining wisdom and passing it on. And if you help everyone else in your worlds to do that, by helping them to learn and understand about themselves and each other and the way everything works, and by showing them how to be kind instead of cruel, and patient instead of hasty, and cheerful instead of surly, and above all how to keep their minds open and free and curious…Then they will renew enough to replace what is lost through one window. So there could be one left open.

~ Philip Pullman

I stare into the ruggedly handsome face, the eyes alight with a vast intelligence and that eerie, unearthly power. He's beautiful, so haunted with power it takes me a second to realize exactly what position Nolan Storm has put me in, and by extension, my family.

~ L.e. Sterling

He places a hand on either side of the bar, locking me in. 'And why won't you admit it?' he asks. I'm so startled by his new, gentler tone that I hazard a glance. My breath catches in my throat. Jared's eyes have changed to that sumptuous green, huge and mesmerizing, the pupils dilating like a cat's. I can't see to look away as he inches forward, until he's standing all but a hair's breadth away from me.

~ L.e. Sterling

Frown deepening, Jared bounces a hand off the chair arm. 'You know you're different, Princess. And it's not just because you're some fancy, spoiled rich girl. Hell, you don't smell like anyone else. Money can't buy that smell.' I assume he wasn't talking about my expensive perfume, which money did in fact buy.

~ L.e. Sterling

Necessity is the mother of invention, which probably explains why invention’s father left home on the pretext of buying a newspaper and hasn’t been heard of since.

~ Tom Holt

I stare at the long, almost elegant thinness of the wrist bone jutting out from a heap of flesh and cloth. All that separates us, that poor woman and me, is an accident of birth.

~ L.e. Sterling

He licks his lips as his head tilts down toward me. My body goes wild. Frissons of electricity travel up and down my spine as the True Born leans down. His voice is silk in my ear. 'You're not with your parents now. No restrictions. How does that make you feel?

~ L.e. Sterling

What's a Laster? A dead man.

~ L.e. Sterling

The fact that you can't see how much you're worth makes you worth so much more. She opened her mouth once, her brow bunched, but nothing came out. She didn't know the words to ask. I continued. A diamond doesn't know how much it's worth; it's just beautiful because it exists.

~ Shelly Crane

I don't pay much attention to the distinction between fantasy and science fiction–or between “genre” and “mainstream” for that matter. For me, all fiction is about prizing the logic of metaphors-which is the logic of narratives in general–over reality, which is irreducibly random and senseless.We spend our entire lives trying to tell stories about ourselves–they’re the essence of memory. It is how we make living in this unfeeling accidental universe tolerable. That we call such a tendency “the narrative fallacy” doesn’t mean it doesn’t also touch upon some aspect of the truth.Some stories simply literalize their metaphors a bit more explicitly.

~ Ken Liu

If you truly love someone, you will cherish what they despise most about themselves - Fernando Conclaves

~ Deborah Harkness

When it came to time travel, science and science fiction and fantasy had flip-flopped. Nobody was going to create a machine that traveled to the future or the past. Time machines might be accepted in science fiction as an enabling device to get the story moving, but they're like faster-than-light space ships-- neither one is going to happen any time soon, not with any technology we know how to implement.The guys who had it figured were the fantasists, Dennis. The Finneys and the Mathesons and the Ellisons and the Serlings. No machines and no advanced physics, at least not most of the time. Just an overpowering desire. Just need and longing and pain and regret and the right talisman or the right surroundings. Put the right person in the right place, and perhaps with the right objects, and the potential for time travel is there.

~ Tony Rabig

But I assure you, a government that is willing to put their own children in danger, their own future, just to see their potential, is twisted. We do not grab babies, newborns, and throw them out of windows just to see if they sprout wings.

~ S. Elizabeth Dover

They were like lightning and rain, existing together but clashing at their very natures.

~ T.s. Pettibone

It's been a pleasure pleasing you.

~ T.s. Pettibone

In the year 2052, it's not love but hate that unites the world.

~ T.s. Pettibone

Let the deal be spoken first and then manipulate it to your advantage.

~ T.s. Pettibone

You'll regret that, Bourkan.

~ T.s. Pettibone

Duty over fear.

~ T.s. Pettibone

I am War. I am Death. I am the Unloved God.

~ T.s. Pettibone

The cool touch of the rock soothed Waeccan. He felt its strengthflowing into him, trickling through his fingertips. The Shades wereon his side. They would bring back the peace he needed for hiswork. The intruder was just a man—nothing more. He would bedealt with. Everything would be as it was meant to be. Waeccanallowed himself a grim smile. How strange it was that he, whosename meant watcher, had become the one who was watched.

~ Mikey Campling

Remember Ping-fa, Sun Tzu,’ Art of War—read between the lines: kick ass and take names later.”MadStargirl

~ Linden Morningstar

Then why are you still here?” I ask. I stand up and her gun follows me. I welcome its bullets just to see if I could survive.“Masochism.”“I don’t know what that means.”“It means I like my own pain.”“That doesn’t make sense.”“I’m human. You think we ever make sense?

~ Tessa Maurer

Mad, in exasperation, cried out to the unseen force, “Why did you summon us? There must be a reason. Tell us.” She heard a dreamlike voice.“You are Stargirls.” The voice paused, letting the fog and confusion of their nightmare to lift.Lyn found her voice, “But why us?”“You are the chosen ones by prophecy; you have proven your worthiness. A time warp brought you here. The one you opened was no accident. It was left a hundred thousand years ago just for you. Your Star training as children has prepared you well. You are ready for the next stage in your evolution.

~ Linden Morningstar

Lyn, this was the “Aha!” moment when Desta found another astonishing skeleton. Remarkably, it appeared utterly human but existed before humans walked the Earth. Clutched in its hand a small sphere attached to an elaborate gold necklace. The sphere was not like any material on Earth. Remember when I told you our origins might lie in the stars? Well, I think we found the answer in the Afar desertMax

~ Linden Morningstar