Science fiction - Quotes from Science Fiction

A lot of quotations carefully collected from a very big amount of books and divided by categories.

Have fun reading it, this is really interesting and breathtaking!

[First use of term science fiction:] We hope it will not be long before we may have other works of Science-Fiction [like Richard Henry Horne's ''The Poor Artist''], as we believe such books likely to fulfil a good purpose, and create an interest, where, unhappily, science alone might fail. [Thomas] Campbell says, that ''Fiction in Poetry is not the reverse of truth, but her soft and enchanting resemblance.'' Now this applies especially to Science-Fiction, in which the revealed truths of Science may be given, interwoven with a pleasing story which may itself be poetical and true - thus circulating a knowledge of the Poetry of Science, clothed in a garb of the Poetry of life.

- WilliamWilson, A Little Earnest Book upon a Great Old Subject (1851)

[On H. G.Wells:] ''I do not see the possibility of comparison between his work and mine.We do not proceed in the same manner. It occurs to me that his stories do not repose on very scientific bases. No, there is no rapport between his work and mine. I make use of physics. He invents. I go to the moon in a cannon-ball, discharged from a cannon. Here there is no invention. He goes to Mars in an airship, which he constructs of a metal which does away with the law of gravitation. Зa c'est trиs joli,'' cried Monsieur Verne in an animated way, ''but show me this metal. Let him produce it.''

- Jules Verne, cited in Robert H. Sherard, ''Jules Verne Re-Visited'' (1903)

Imagine a country where the only fertile soil is asphalt, where nothing grows but dense forests of factory chimneys, where the animal herds are of a single breed, automobiles, and the only fragrance in the spring is that of gasoline. This place of stone, asphalt, iron, gasoline, and machines is present-day, twentieth-century London, and, naturally, it was bound to produce its own iron, automobile goblins, and its own mechanical, chemical fairy tales. Such urban tales exist; they are told by Herbert GeorgeWells.

- Yevgeny Zamiatin, ''H. G.Wells'' (1922), translated by Mirra Ginsburg (1970)

By ''scientifiction'' I mean the Jules Verne, H. G.Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe type of story - a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision.

- Hugo Gernsback, ''A New Sort of Magazine'' (1926)

[First modern use of term science fiction:] Remember that Jules Verne was a sort of Shakespeare of science fiction, and we would feel derelict if we did not give his stories in our columns.

- T. O'Conor Sloane, ''Discussions,'' Amazing Stories, January (1927)

Not only is science fiction an idea of tremendous import, but it is to be an important factor in making the world a better place to live in, through educating the public to the possibilities of science and the influence of science on life which, even today, are not appreciated by the man on the street. [. . .] If every man, woman, boy and girl, could be induced to read science fiction right along, there would certainly be a great resulting benefit to the community, in that the educational standards of its people would be raised tremendously. Science fiction would make people happier, give them a broader understanding of the world, make them more tolerant.

- Hugo Gernsback, ''Science FictionWeek'' (1930)

No average mind can either understand or enjoy science-fiction; it takes an amount of imagination beyond the average man.

- JohnW. Campbell, Jr., ''Science-Fiction'' (1938)

Back in the nineteen-hundreds it was a wonderful experience for a boy to discover H. G.Wells. There you were, in a world of pedants, clergyman and golfers, with your future employers exhorting you to ''get on or get out,'' your parents systematically warping your sexual life, and your dull-witted schoolmasters sniggering over their Latin tags; and here was this wonderful man who could tell you about the inhabitants of the planets and the bottom of the sea, and who knew that the future was not going to be what respectable people imagined.

- George Orwell, ''Wells, Hitler, and theWorld State'' (1941)

One of the purposes of literature is to transport the reader. Science fiction does that. Let more ponderous branches of the art also edify, inform, and elevate. They, too, transport the reader, but rarely as far up as Sirius or as far down as the hydrogen atom. And the fact that here are ideas and dreams which man has never before thought or imagined in the written history of the world gives these tales a certain permanence.

- Groff Conklin, introduction to The Best of Science Fiction (1946)

A piece of scientific fiction is a narrative of an imaginary invention or discovery in the natural sciences and consequent adventures and experiences.

- J. O. Bailey, Pilgrims through Space and Time (1947)

To all the readers and the writers of that new literature called science fiction, who find mystery, wonder, and high adventure in the expanding universe of knowledge, and also sometimes seek to observe and to forecast the vast impact of science upon the lives and minds of men.

- JackWilliamson, dedication, The Legion of Space, revised (1947)

Nothing is deader than yesterday's science-fiction.

- Arthur C. Clarke, The Sands of Mars (1951)

Begotten by Imagination on the body of Technology, there springs forth the wild child, Science Fiction. [. . .] Science fiction is a kind of archaeology of the future.

- Clifton Fadiman, introduction to Great Stories of Science Fiction (1951)

Science fiction is the literature of the Technological Era. It, unlike other literatures, assumes that change is the natural order of things, that there are goals ahead larger than those we know.

- JohnW. Campbell, Jr., introduction to The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology (1952)

A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content.

- Theodore Sturgeon, cited in James Blish, ''Some Propositions'' (1952)

Science fiction is that class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesised on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terrestrial in origin.

- Kingsley Amis, New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction (1960)

Science fiction - the fact needs emphasizing - is no more written for scientists and technologists than ghost stories were written for ghosts.

- BrianW. Aldiss, introduction to Penguin Science Fiction (1961)

Science fiction is, very strictly and literally, analogous to science facts. It is a convenient analog system for thinking about new scientific, social, and economic ideas - and for re-examining old ideas.

- JohnW. Campbell, Jr., introduction to Prologue to Analog (1962)

Speculative fantasy, as I prefer to call the more serious fringe of science fiction, is an especially potent method of using one's imagination to construct a paradoxical universe where dream and reality become fused together, each retaining its own distinctive quality and yet in some way assuming the role of its opposite, and where by an undeniable logic black simultaneously becomes white.

- J. G. Ballard, ''Time, Memory, and Inner Space'' (1963)

That group of writings which is usually referred to as ''mainstream literature'' is, actually, a special subgroup of the field of science fiction - for science fiction deals with all places in the Universe, and all times in Eternity, so the literature of here-and-now is, truly, a subset of science fiction.

- JohnW. Campbell, Jr., introduction to Analog I (1963)

Science fiction is a branch of fantasy identifiable by the fact that it eases the ''willing suspension of disbelief '' on the part of its readers by utilizing an atmosphere of scientific credibility for its imaginative speculations in physical science, space, time, social science, and philosophy.

- Sam Moskowitz, introduction to Explorers of the Infinite (1963)

''I love you sons of bitches [science fiction writers],'' Eliot said in Milford. ''You're all I read any more. You're the only ones who'll talk about the really terrific changes going on, the only ones crazy enough to know that life is a space voyage, and not a short one, either, but one that'll last for billions of years. You're the only ones with guts enough to really care about the future, who really notice what machines do to us, what wars do to us, what cities do to us, what big, simple ideas do to us, what tremendous misunderstandings, mistakes, accidents and catastrophes do to us. You're the only ones zany enough to agonize over time and distances without limit, over mysteries that will never die, over the fact that we are right now determining whether the space voyage for the next billion years or so is going to be Heaven or Hell.''

- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)

Jules Verne was my father. H. G.Wells was my wise uncle. Edgar Allan Poe was the batwinged cousin we kept high in the back attic room. Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers were my brothers and friends. There you have my ancestry. Adding, of course, the fact that in all probability MaryWollstonecraft Shelley, author of Frankenstein, was my mother.

- Ray Bradbury, introduction to S Is for Space (1966)

It is absurd to condemn [science fiction stories] because they do not often display any deep or sensitive characterization. They oughtn't to. [. . .] Every good writer knows that the more unusual the scenes and events of his story are, the slighter, the more ordinary, the more typical his persons should be. Hence Gulliver is a commonplace little man and Alice a commonplace little girl. If they had been more remarkable they would have wrecked their books. The Ancient Mariner himself is a very ordinary man. To tell how odd things struck odd people is to have an oddity too much; he who is to see strange sights must not himself be strange.

- C. S. Lewis, ''On Science Fiction'' (1966)

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, ''Fictions of Every Kind'' (1971)

Phrased rather too simply, science fiction deals with improbable possibilities, fantasy with plausible impossibilities.

- Miriam Allen deFord, introduction to Elsewhere, Elsewhen, Elsehow (1971)

Science has from the beginning been what is most spectacularly is now, the handmaiden of capitalism. Sf has all along been the handmaiden of, as well as the parasite on, science. This is a treason to the profession of writing, which in its serious forms can be a handmaiden of nothing but disdain for, and assault upon, that-which-is.

- Bernard Wolfe, afterword to ''Biscuit Position'' and ''The Girl with Rapid Eye Movements'' (1972)

Science fiction is the search for a definition of man 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 mould.

- BrianW. Aldiss, Billion Year Spree: The True History of Science Fiction (1973)

Michael Rennie was ill The day the Earth stood still But he told us wherewe stand And Flash Gordon was there In silver underwear Claude Rains was the invisible man Then something went wrong For FayWray and King Kong They got caught in a celluloid jam Then at a deadly pace It came from outer space And this is how the message ran. Science fiction - double feature Doctor X - will build a creature See Androids fighting - Brad and Janet Anne Francis stars in - Forbidden Planet Oh, at the late night double-feature Picture show

- Richard O'Brien, ''Science Fiction,'' The Rocky Horror Show (play, 1973)

I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled ''science fiction'' ever since, and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.

- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ''Science Fiction'' (1974)

My briefest-ever definition of science fiction is ''Hubris clobbered by Nemesis.''

- BrianW. Aldiss, Science Fiction Art (1975)

Science fiction and the world. They have created each other. [. . .] We live, indisputably, in a science fiction world.

- James Gunn, AlternateWorlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction (1975)

All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is metaphor.What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use of new metaphors, drawn from certain great dominants of our contemporary life - science, all the sciences, and technology, and the relativistic and the historical outlook, among them. Space travel is one of these metaphors; so is an alternative society, an alternative biology; the future is another.

- Ursula K. Le Guin, introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness (1976)

One good working definition of science fiction may be the literature which, growing with science and technology, evaluates it and relates it meaningfully to the rest of human existence.

- H. Bruce Franklin, introduction to Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century, revised (1978)

I will argue for an understanding of SF as the literature of cognitive estrangement. [. . .] SF is, then, a literary genrewhose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author's empirical environment.

- Darko Suvin, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction (1979)

You are welcome, therefore, Stranger, to join Our cofraternity. But please observe the rules. Always display a cheerful disposition. Do not refer To our infirmities. Help us to conquer the galaxy.

- Thomas M. Disch, ''On Science Fiction'' (1980)

There was hardly a science fiction writer of experience who was not - at least to Ruthven's antennae - displaying signs of mental illness. That decay, Ruthven came to think, had to do with the very nature of the genre: the megalomaniacal, expansive visions being generated by writers who increasingly saw the disparity between Spaceways and their own hopeless condition. [. . .] At a particularly bleak time, Ruthven even came to speculate that science fiction writing was a form of illness which, like syphilis, might swim undetected in the blood for years but would eventually, untreated, strike to kill.

- Barry N. Malzberg, ''Corridors'' (1982)

No less a critic than C. S. Lewis has described the ravenous addiction that these [science fiction] magazines inspired in him; the same phenomenon has led me to call science fiction the only genuine consciousness-expanding drug.

- Arthur C. Clarke, ''Of Sand and Stars'' (1983)

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, ''How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later'' (1985)

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

- Ursula K. Le Guin, ''The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction'' (1986)

Science fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is in fact going on, what people actually do and feel, how people relate to everything else in this vast sack, this belly of the universe, this womb of things to be and tomb of things that were, this unending story.

- Ursula K. Le Guin, ''The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction'' (1986)

If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, science-fiction writers are its court jesters.

- Bruce Sterling, preface to Burning Chrome (1986)

SF looks toward an imaginary future, while fantasy, by and large, looks toward an imaginary past. Both can be entertaining. Both can possibly be, perhaps sometimes actually are, even inspiring. But as we can't change the past, and can't avoid changing the future, only one of them can be real.

- Frederik Pohl, ''Pohlemic: Mail Call'' (1992)

A revealing way of describing science fiction is to say that it is part of a literary mode which one may call ''fabril.'' ''Fabril'' is the opposite of ''pastoral.'' [. . .] Pastoral literature is rural, nostalgic, conservative. It idealizes the past and tends to convert complexities into simplicity; its central image is the shepherd. Fabril literature (of which science fiction is now by far the most prominent genre)

is overwhelmingly urban, disruptive, future-oriented, eager for novelty; its central image is the ''faber,'' the smith or blacksmith in older usage, but now extended in science fiction to mean the creator of artefacts in general - metallic, crystalline, genetic, or even social.

- Tom Shippey, introduction to The Oxford Book of Science Fiction (1992)

That's all science fiction was ever about. Hating the way things are, wanting to make things different.

- Ray Bradbury, ''No News, or, What Killed the Dog?'' (1994)

SF has never really aimed to tell us when we might reach other planets, or develop new technologies, or meet aliens. SF speculates about why we might want to do these things, and how their consequences might affect our lives and our planet.

- John Clute, SF: The Illustrated Encyclopedia (1995)

Science fiction is an argument with the universe.

- Farah Mendlesohn, editorial in Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction 88 (2003)