quotations about science fiction
One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a flexibility of mind. Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. Two-thirds of 2001 is realistic -- hardware and technology -- to establish background for the metaphysical, philosophical, and religious meanings later.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
attributed, The Making of Kubrick's 2001
Science-fiction works hand-in-glove with the universe.
RAY BRADBURY
introduction, The Circus of Dr. Lao and Other Improbable Stories
Science Fiction is the logical endgame of all the different creative avenues.
BREE CAGGIATI
"At Home With the Belligerents", Broadsheet, September 20, 2017
Science fictions are suppressed only when likely to contribute more knowledge and freedom than the defensive orthodoxies they challenge.
TIMOTHY LEARY
Musings on Human Metamorphoses
I think that science fiction, even the corniest of it, even the most outlandish of it, no matter how badly it's written, has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
Guest of Honor Speech, 3rd World Science Fiction Convention, Denver, Colorado, "The Discovery of the Future", July 4, 1941
Science fiction is the only genre that really allows you to explore issues with a point of view without seeming preachy.
SETH MACFARLANE
"Seth MacFarlane discusses 'The Orville,' 'Star Trek,' and the struggle to make science fiction funny", The New Yorker, September 9, 2017
A snappy label and a manifesto would have been two of the very last things on my own career want list. That label enabled mainstream science fiction to safely assimilate our dissident influence, such as it was. Cyberpunk could then be embraced and given prizes and patted on the head, and genre science fiction could continue unchanged.
WILLIAM GIBSON
The Paris Review, summer 2011
I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world.
MINDY KALING
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
I don't think "science fiction" is a very good name for it, but it's the name that we've got. It is different from other kinds of writing, I suppose, so it deserves a name of its own. But where I can get prickly and combative is if I'm just called a sci-fi writer. I'm not. I'm a novelist and poet. Don't shove me into your damn pigeonhole, where I don't fit, because I'm all over. My tentacles are coming out of the pigeonhole in all directions.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
interview, The Paris Review, fall 2013
It is said that science fiction and fantasy are two different things. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, and fantasy is the impossible made probable.
ROD SERLING
"The Fugitive", The Twilight Zone
There are a number of writers who innovate, who attack the problems of human reaction to scientific advance, who talk about the human condition in a technological world, and who have the long view. These are the carriers of the torch. The ones who content themselves with a tiny bit of "sense of wonder" are within the fold, but they're the same sorts who were always writing the "gave a mighty whack and green ichor flowed..." sort of yarn. Now, unfortunately, they're touted to the skies and given slick covers, while the real books languish in the niches and don't get much promotion. That's where sf conventions ought to come in -- rather than spending their time and effort talking about the latest tv creation and trying to up their numbers.... The torch is still burning, but it's been passed with far less publicity than it deserves.
C. J. CHERRYH
interview, SFRevu, June 1, 2004
Any time we try to envision a different world--without poverty, prisons, capitalism, war--we are engaging in science fiction. When we can dream those realities together, that's when we can begin to build them right here and now.
WALIDAH IMARISHA
"Why Science Fiction Is a Fabulous Tool in the Fight for Social Justice", The Nation, June 2, 2015
I mean, to me, the best science fiction is obviously not about explosions and action. It's about people and it's about finding clever ways to write allegorically about what's going on in the world.
SETH MACFARLANE
"Interview: Seth MacFarlane On The Orville's Unique Tone, 'Star Trek' Roots", Forbes, September 16, 2017
That's really what SF is all about, you know: the big reality that pervades the real world we live in: the reality of change. Science fiction is the very literature of change. In fact, it is the only such literature we have.
FREDERIK POHL
attributed, Science Fiction Authors: A Research Guide
My briefest ever definition of science fiction is "Hubris clobbered by Nemesis."
BRIAN W. ALDISS
Science Fiction Art
It seems in other ways, in some respects, that the mainstream authors are tending to use more and more science fiction notions. But their books aren't really classified as science fiction and I suppose they're not because they're also doing other things. I personally feel that it is going to stay a thing apart, that it will undergo vogues, as it were. I think there will be periods when it's more highly regarded and then it will slip back again. It seems throughout what I've seen of its history that it's been a cyclic pattern--it rises to prominence for a time. Something will set it off briefly, like the space programme or, well just recently a couple of good movies that got a lot of attention back in the States, like Star Wars and Close Encounters -- and science fiction books become very popular. Then, of course, everyone will jump on the movie band-wagon and produce a crop of grade-B movies, and they'll sink, and then people will slip back to reading other things. But there's a certain residuum that remains.
ROGER ZELAZNY
"A Conversation with Roger Zelazny", Science Fiction, April 8, 1978
There are, without doubt, great possibilities in the serious exploitation of the astronomical tale; as a few semi-classics like "The War of the Worlds", "The Last and First Men", "Station X", "The Red Brain", and Clark Ashton Smith's best work prove. But the pioneers must be prepared to labour without financial return, professional recognition, or the encouragement of a reading majority whose taste has been seriously warped by the rubbish it has devoured. Fortunately sincere artistic creation is its own incentive and reward, so that despite all obstacles we need not despair of the future of a fresh literary form whose present lack of development leaves all the more room for brilliant and fruitful experimentation.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"Some Notes on Interplanetary Fiction", Californian, winter 1935
No average mind can either understand or enjoy science-fiction; it takes an amount of imagination beyond the average man.
JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR.
"Science Fiction"
At some point, every science fiction and fantasy story must challenge the reader's experience and learning. That's much of the reason why the genre is so open to experimentation and innovation that other genres reject--strangeness is our bread and butter. Spread it thick or slice it thin, it's still our staff of life.
ORSON SCOTT CARD
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy
I often use the metaphor of Perseus and the head of Medusa when I speak of science fiction. Instead of looking into the face of truth, you look over your shoulder into the bronze surface of a reflecting shield. Then you reach back with your sword and cut off the head of Medusa. Science fiction pretends to look into the future but it's really looking at a reflection of what is already in front of us. So you have a ricochet vision, a ricochet that enables you to have fun with it, instead of being self-conscious and superintellectual.
RAY BRADBURY
The Paris Review, spring 2010