Best Science Fiction Quotes

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The real universe is always one step beyond logic.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

The fact that it’s science fiction gives you the license to do anything you want to do.

The oft-heard comment that Leonardo [da Vinci]’s genius managed to transcend the culture of his time is amply justified. But his was not a science-fiction voyage into the future as much as a plunge into the past.

Physics has entered a remarkable era. Ideas that were once the realm of science fiction are now entering our theoretical ? and maybe even experimental ? grasp. Brand-new theoretical discoveries about extra dimensions have irreversibly changed how particle physicists, astrophysicists, and cosmologists now think about the world. The sheer number and pace of discoveries tells us that we’ve most likely only scratched the surface of the wondrous possibilities that lie in store. Ideas have taken on a life of their own.

Science fiction invites the writer to grandly explore alternative worlds and pose questions about meaning and destiny.

I’m a big fan of science fiction, animation, and things of that nature. Other worlds and that type of stuff.

I hesitate to predict whether this theory is true. But if the general opinion of Mankind is optimistic then we’re in for a period of extreme popularity for science fiction.

[Science fiction is] the attempt to deal rationally with alternate possibilities in a manner which will be entertaining.

I probably would never be able to direct a comedy because I’m not that funny. I don’t have that funny bone in me, so it wouldn’t be a natural fit. But I love the world of science fiction, and I love the world of technology and science too.

Science always interested me, and science, real science, was more science fiction than science fiction.

I have always loved science fiction. One of my favorite shows is ‘Star Trek.’ I like the trips, where it drops my mind off, because they give you a premise and all of a sudden, you say, ‘Oh!’ and I’m fascinated by it.

My mom introduced me to science-fiction.

I quite enjoy science fiction.

Science fiction is an extension of science.

It does sound like a science fiction story and I may sound like one of these guys who walks up and down with a sandwich board saying the end of the world is nigh, but the end is nigh.

Science fiction is the characteristic literary genre of the century. It is the genre that stands in opposition to literary modernism.

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive…. Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist’s business is lying…. Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don’t tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies.

I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem you in and there was no human condition that you were stopped from examining.

No one was going to stop me from writing and no one had to really guide me towards science fiction. It was natural, really, that I would take that interest.

And by the way, I wanted to point out that Kindred is not science fiction. You’ll note there’s no science in it. It’s a kind of grim fantasy.

Everybody always talks about the science fiction genre, in particular, which always makes me think about people in spaceships. I can appreciate that, but that’s not really where I think my dramatist aspect lies.

I’ve always been a fan of science fiction. My family, we all used to watch ‘Star Trek’ together, which is kind of a nerdy family activity.

As you see, I bear some resentment and some scars from the years of anti-genre bigotry. My own fiction, which moves freely around among realism, magical realism, science fiction, fantasy of various kinds, historical fiction, young adult fiction, parable, and other subgenres, to the point where much of it is ungenrifiable, all got shoved into the Sci Fi wastebasket or labeled as kiddilit – subliterature.

Science fiction is never about the future, in the same way history is rarely about the past: they’re both parable formats for examining or commenting on the present.

Science fiction – and the correct shortcut is ‘sf’ – uses actual scientific facts or theories for the source ideas or framework of the story. It has some scientific content, however speculative. If it breaks a law of physics, it knows it’s doing so and follows up the consequences. If it invents a society of aliens, it does so with some respect for and knowledge of the social sciences and what you might call social probabilities. And some of it is literarily self-aware enough to treat its metaphors as metaphors.

The chief difference between horror fans and science fiction fans lies in why they won’t walk backwards. A horror fan won’t walk backwards because he knows he’ll be knifed by a madman. A science fiction fan won’t walk backwards because he knows he’ll step on the cat.

I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time.

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

It’s interesting how many science fiction writers get going when they are very young. I was on a program with Greg Bear and he mentioned that he had gotten started writing when he was eight. And I began writing when I was 10. I think we’re influenced by the stuff, we find it and we love it and we’re influenced by it….I know I collected my first rejection slip when I was 13, and I went on collecting them for a long time after that.

All ideas about identity, of course, fit perfectly into the social media wonderland we live in. They seem to really connect. There’s a science-fiction aspect to our contemporary life. What’s virtual, what’s real.

I first read science fiction in the old British Chum annual when I was about 12 years old.

Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere.

The dilemma felt by science fiction writers will be perceived in other creative endeavors.