Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Some see the glass half full, some see it half empty, and some see it crawling with toxic alien parasites who want to devour your pancreas.
If you look at any kind of modern organization and you think, 'What are the foremost tools of power?' You will find that it is information.
One of my current pet theories is that the winter is a kind of evangelist, more subtle than Billy Graham, of course, but of the same stuff.
In a tough situation, don't avoid acting just because it's easier or comfortable. Don't lapse into a passive state. People who give up, die.
Certainly I see no reason why society should prevent grieving parents from having a baby cloned from the cells of a dead child if they wish.
Everyone's life is a mess. Everyone's. We all make mistakes . . . and not just little slip-ups. Major mistakes that hurt us and other people.
Sometimes the reader will decide something else than the author's intent; this is certainly true of attempts to empirically decipher reality.
Don't mistake a good setup for a satisfying conclusion - many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to begin.
I think the rising and falling popularity of areas like hard SF and far-future SF is, to a considerable extent, the same as any other fashion.
The earliest depiction of libertarian eugenics may have appeared in a science fiction novel, Robert Heinlein's 1942 tale 'Beyond This Horizon.'
Around 1930, a small new phenomenon arose in Depression-ridden America, spawned out of the letter columns in science fiction magazines: fandom.
Once employees feel challenged, invigorated and productive, their efforts will naturally translate into profit and growth for the organisation.
The popularity of conspiracy theories is explained by people's desire to believe that there is - some group of folks who know what they're doing
Bill Gore from Goretex was a very strong influence because he was one of the first larger companies to experiment with freedom in the workplace.
What science fiction does is take what might be possible someday and examine what might happen if it were - the drawbacks and the positive things.
Everybody feels he has a right to a life of luxury - or at least comfort - so there's a lot of frustration and resentment when the dream craps out.
It's easy to imagine ways the future can be ugly and depressing. It's harder, but more worthwhile, to imagine plausible ways we can make it better.
I want my readers to be disturbed. I want them to ask, 'Could this really happen?' It is my job to think up new possibilities, to stimulate thought.
I am a collector of dolls and doll parts. I'm rarely creeped out by most dolls, either in real life or in literature, but I know many people who are.
'Star Trek' is notorious for looting the more thoughtful work of writers for their striking effects, leaving behind most of the thought and subtlety.
The purpose of work is not to make money. The purpose of work is to make the workers, whether working stiffs or top executives, feel good about life.
Nostalgia is eternal for Americans. We are often displaced from our origins and carry anxious memories of that lost past. We fear losing our bearings.
As a literature of change driven by technology, science fiction presents religion to a part of the reading public that probably seldom goes to church.
Superficial similarities exist between Christianity and some ancient pagan religions. But careful study reveals that there are far more dissimilarities.
I suspect that writer's block afflicts mainly people who have some stable and ample source of income outside of writing. So far it hasn't been a problem.
Genre pleasures are many, but the quality of shared values within an ongoing discussion may be the most powerful, enlisting lifelong devotion in its fans.
If we do not let people do things the way they do, we will never know what they are really capable of and they will just follow our boarding school rules.
The people who don't like it tend to dislike it intensely. That's unfortunate, but not surprising when one deliberately goes against audience expectations.
Its limitations are those of the physical universe: it won't let you play with some really wild ideas that aren't possible, but are fun to speculate about.
A reasonable agriculture would do its best to emulate nature. Rather than change the earth to suit a crop... it would diversify its crops to suit the earth
There are readers who want every point to be clearly and unambiguously set forth, and there are those who want to pry ideas and meanings out for themselves.
Through our entire history we have become accustomed to pushing [animals] around in ways dictated by our own wants and needs without much regard for theirs.
What SF can do better than anything else is show us the range of our possible futures, and what we can do to realize the good ones and avoid the nasty ones.
This means I must pay close attention to the writing, but equally so to the scientific background - which sometimes means doing fairly involved calculations.
Invoking nature with its implied supremacy ignores that many cultures have fundamentally differing ideas of even what nature is, much less how it should work.
One of the laws of nature," Gordon said, "is that half the people have got to be below average.""For a Gaussian distribution, yeah," Cooper said. "Sad, though.
Seeing the space future through science fiction can be difficult. Much science fiction of the early era, the 1950s through the '70s, took an expansionist view.
We've got a good inspection system in Arizona managing products that come from other parts of the county that could carry insects that could become problematic.
Well, it's an adventure story, and a Bildungsroman, of course, but there was also the intention to describe a culture that had been seen in rather narrow terms.
The cynical part of the answer is that I expect to see a good deal more space opera, set far enough in the future as to be disconnected from contemporary issues.
I think most new writers are better off going with traditional publishers who will actually, at a minimum, edit your work, package it well, and market it for you.
Only towards the end of this process are any of the chapters in fully readable condition, a state of affairs that used to alarm my wife. But Joan's got used to it.
When Joseph Wambaugh writes about the LAPD, you listen because you know he knows the scene. Lots of people write cop novels, but they don't have that authenticity.
We have a name for people who create universes - they're called gods. There is no greater hubris than to think that we could take the place of godlike implications.
(Home is) a place we carry inside ourselves, a place where we welcome the unfamiliar because we know that as time passes it will become the very bedrock of our being.
Dinner at college high table is one of the legendary experiences of England. I could remember keenly each one I had attended; the repartee is sharper than the cutlery.
Every book is three books, after all; the one the writer intended, the one the reader expected, and the one that casts its shadow when the first two meet by moonlight.
There is no contest between the company that buys the grudging compliance of its work force and the company that enjoys the enterprising participation of its employees
I believe no one can afford, endure or can stomach leaving half a life in the parking lot when she or he goes to work. It's a lousy way to live and a lousy way to work.
I'll read any anthologies or collection I can get my hands on. If I find a book mentioned in 'Publisher's Weekly,' and it looks like it will be dark, I'll track it down.