Quotes from Brian W. Aldiss

Science fiction is no more written for scientists than ghost stories are written for ghosts.

Science fiction is for real, space opera is for fun.

Credeti c? tr?im în centrul universului. Eu v? spun c? tr?im în centrul curtii unei ferme. PoziÈ›ia noastr? este atat de obscur?, încat nu v? puteÈ›i da seama cât este de obscur?.

This is how Yuli, son of Alehaw, came to a place called Oldorando, where his descendants flourished in the better days that were to come.

how far was a feeling genuine if it did not find expression in an external act?

They were both sweating freely.

he could see it glinting at his fingertips, ready to be fashioned.

Death, after all, had many shapes; everyone knew it: it was the way.

When he woke, she was gone. He lay for a long while looking up at the tent roof, wondering how much he cared. He needed company, although he was never wholly comfortable with it; he needed a woman, although he was never wholly happy with one. He wanted to talk, although he knew most talk was an admission of non-communication.

He began talking to an imagined woman, achieving an eloquence that was never his when he was face to face with anyone else.

She strengthened her will by saying "It is the Way.

The time was one of great organization and aspiration, of communities, communes, and committees.

en mi ficción intento poner límites al elemento disparate. Dragones, vampiros, duendes, espadas que cantan, etcétera, no tienen cabida en ella. Pese a todas mis aspiraciones a la locura, persiste en mí una vieja veta racionalista.

It'd be kind of silly if we killed ourselves off after all this time. If we do, we're stupider than the cave people and I don't think we are. I think we're just exactly as stupid and that's pretty bright in the long run.

Hubris clobbered by Nemesis

It's empty where kings live.

Qué puede digerir un espíritu sino palabras?

My shorter definition of SF (is) Hubris clobbered by nemesis.

So what's this "sad" business mean, anyway? I mean, how often do you feel like doing it?' 'Sad? Oh, sadness is just happiness in reverse. We humans have to put up with it. Just being human is an awful burden to bear.' 'You keep on doing it? Is that why you feel compelled to collect all these old secondhand sunsets?

The night was alive. So thickly was the snow falling that, brushing against a human face in its descent, it resembled the fur of a great beast. The fur was less cold than suffocating: it occupied space normally taken up by air and sound. But when the sledge stopped, the staid brazen tongue of a bell could be distantly heard.

Far from being unnatural, as you call, it is commonplace when you have evil conditions. Poverty is more strong than morality. That's another reason why for the world must submit to progress. Misery must be decreased before everyone will choke to death on it.

RzÄ…dzi? znaczy sÅ'u?y?, kobieto! Ci, którzy sprawujÄ… wÅ'adzÄ™, sÄ… jej niewolnikami. Tylko wygnaniec jest wolny.

It occurred to him that perhaps all his life he had only been hearing echoes of himself, and that his morality, on which he had once prided himself, was merely a refusal to permit other people into his life.

What we see today is the too-easy acceptance of sf. The sharp idiom we created has blurred to become one of the bland flavourings of mass media; the unembarrassed muse we espoused is one of the jades of television. And the younger writers now writing have an entirely different approach to their art. They have found how easy it is to rely on formula, or how simply success can come through self-advertisement.