Quotes About Imagination

All those stories I've told you are as delicate as butterflies.

Imaginative poetry produces a far greater mental strain than novels. It produces probably the severest strain of any form of literature. It is the highest form of literature. It yields the highest form of pleasure, and teaches the highest form of wisdom. In a word, there is nothing to compare with it. I say this with sad consciousness of the fact that the majority of people do not read poetry.

Good fiction is autobiography dressed in the colours of all mankind.

We go about in a world where secret influences are continually at work for us or against us, and we do not suspect their existence, because we have no imagination. For it needs imagination to perceive the truth—that is why the greatest poets are always the greatest teachers.

First-class fiction is, and must be, in the final resort autobiographical.

A lot of photographers think that if they buy a better camera they'll be able to take better photographs. A better camera won't do a thing for you if you don't have anything in your head or in your heart.

Ideas, conceptual ans visual, are all forms of art are about. Everything else is nothing more than the subject matter, ans technique, which is easily learned.

All I know is that the first step is to create a vision, because when you see the vision – the beautiful vision – that creates the want power.

De schrijvers is natuurlijk de valsspeler bij uitstek. Hij maakt gebruik van middelen die anderen niet hebben. Zijn leven is een laboratorium waarin experimenten worden uitgevoerd ten behoeve van het vertellen van verhalen. Wat hem ook overkomt, hij kan altijd afstand nemen van zijn rampen, zijn tragedies, zijn mislukkingen, door erover te vertellen. Dat kunnen anderen niet altijd, niet op die manier, en dat maakt hem een valsspeler.

De schrijver is natuurlijk de valsspeler bij uitstek. Hij maakt gebruik van middelen die anderen niet hebben. Zijn leven is een laboratorium waarin experimenten worden uitgevoerd ten behoeve van het vertellen van verhalen. Wat hem ook overkomt, hij kan altijd afstand nemen van zijn rampen, zijn tragedies, zijn mislukkingen, door erover te vertellen. Dat kunnen anderen niet altijd, niet op die manier, en dat maakt hem een valsspeler.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

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

But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. The truth, as always, will be far stranger.

science fiction is something that could happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to. Fantasy is something that couldn't happen - though often you only wish that it could.

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.

If he was indeed mad, his delusions were beautifully organized.

For if not true, they are well imagined...

He was moving through a new order of creation, of which few men had ever dreamed. Beyond the realms of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire, which he alone had been privileged to glimpse. It was too much to expect that he would also understand.

When the reality was depressing, men tried to console themselves with myth.

a well-stocked mind is safe from boredom.

Science fiction could now be made far more convincing by science fact.

Much blood has also been spilled on the carpet in attempts to distinguish between science fiction and fantasy. I have suggested an operational definition: science fiction is something that COULD happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to. Fantasy is something that COULDN'T happen - though often you only wish that it could.

At the present rate of progress, it is almost impossible to imagine any technical feat that cannot be achieved - if it can be achieved at all - within the next few hundred years.