Political Science Fiction Quotes

I have a story to tell. It is a tale for those who can still see, can still question.

A story of where you are and how you got here. A tale foretold by your poets and prophets through the ages. Read their words, their thoughts, so that you may understand. ~ W.H. Wisecarver

Life is a sewer and we are all but swimmers within it. Smart people do the backstroke. (In other words you gotta have a giggle.) ~ Stephen B. Pearl

I don't think humanity just replays history, but we are the same people our ancestors were, and our descendants are going to face a lot of the same situations we do. It's instructive to imagine how they would react, with different technologies on different worlds. That's why I write science fiction
even though the term 'science fiction' excites disdain in certain persons. ~ Kage Baker

Flammflorbs, archypodsplays, clinker crabs, dorsaldorydabbs, mingslakks, linglimes, occocobbers, firgengobblers, smitesnides, orkusta shelled bunkbarnacles, balootabinks, jorgentua jellyfish, tungol widders, teleosti chimaras, and things stranger, yet to be named, Klubbe and his crew members observed through their portholes, lit by the lamps of their submarine's lanterns. ~ Philip Dodd

The Coilhunter wasn't much of a talker. He liked to keep things short and sweet, just like the lives of criminals. Well, the short bit anyway. ~ Dean F. Wilson

Never let other people bring you down let Jesus be the one who brings you down, because he knows what he is doing ~ Skye Daphne

She feels a little sad. Is she sad? Helen considers an alternative: She is dehydrated. ~ Meg Howrey

The alien reached out her hands to hold Alex's tightly. "Please. Some of what I want to express, it may be difficult to locate the right words."

"Of course."

Pure alabaster eyes stared back at her. "Child, there is a hole in your mind. ~ G.S. Jennsen

I don't know how history is taught here in Japan, " he told the audience when he traveled there in 1985 to give an acceptance speech, "but in the United States in my college days, most of the time was spent on the study of political leaders and wars – Ceasars, Napoleons, and Hitlers. I think this is totally wrong. The important people and events of history are the thinkers and innovators, the Darwins, Newtons, Beethovens whose work continues to grow in influence in a positive fashion ~ Jon Gertner

You're the one who put me in distress! ~ Trevor Alan Foris

She gazed at the bay of wrecked shuttles in dismay. The last of her adrenaline seeped away at the sight of the widespread destruction.

It occurred to her then, for perhaps the first time in this long nightmare, that she was going to die. ~ G.S. Jennsen

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. ~ Octavia E. Butler

The future. Space travel, or cosmology. Alternate universes. Time travel. Robots. Marvelous inventions. Immortality. Catastrophes. Aliens. Superman. Other dimensions. Inner space, or the psyche. These are the ideas that are essential to science fiction. The phenomena change, the basic ideas do not. These ideas are the same philosophical concepts that have intrigued mankind throughout history. ~ Kate Wilhelm

He wondered if other Shifters had the same homing instinct for a teleportation departure point. It never lasted long, maybe a couple of hours, a half day at most, like a subconscious computer memory. It baffled scientists years after they had first examined Lock's abilities. Nobody had come up with an answer for that ability and Lock was unaware of how he did it. It simply existed, like his other skills. ~ J.M. Johnson

I think a lot of people have an idea of virtual reality from science fiction, books and movies that have been out over the last couple of decades. ~ Brendan Iribe

I've got my own toilet." -- Grace Harper ~ Christine Amsden

Funny story. A bunch of people -- the cult -- blame the appearance of abilities on the invention of the internet. ~ Alex Lane

As many authors have said, if the writer is not surprised by events, then chances are that the reader will not be either, and grow bored. ~ Paul Di Filippo

Still the myth stands, does it, hmmm? Black cats are bad luck, are they? ~ Trevor Alan Foris

In time truth and science and nature will adapt themselves to art. Things will happen logically, and the villain be discomfited instead of being elected to the board of directors. But in the meantime fiction must not only be divorced from fact, but must pay alimony and be awarded custody of the press despatches. ~ O. Henry

In this universe the night was falling; the shadows were lengthening towards an east that would not know another dawn. But elsewhere the stars were still young and the light of morning lingered; and along the path he once had followed, Man would one day go again. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

The prophecy has come true! You put the sea salt in the soup...You are the one! ~ PanOrpheus

Why women don't have facial hair. God doesn't cover up anything that looks beautiful. ~ Tony Sakalauskas

Science fiction and fantasy feels like it's been ascending in the zeitgeist. ~ John Joseph Adams

Sometimes, during the lonely hours on the control deck, Bowman would listen to this radiation. He would turn up the gain until the room filled with a crackling, hissing roar; out of this background, at irregular intervals, emerged brief whistles and peeps like the cries of demented birds. It was an eerie sound, for it had nothing to do with Man; it was as lonely and meaningless as the murmur of waves on a beach, or the distant crash of thunder beyond the horizon. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

Wells is teaching us to think. Burroughs and his lesser imitators are teaching us not to think. Of course, Burroughs is teaching us to wonder. The sense of wonder is in essence a religious state, blanketing out criticism. Wells was always a critic, even in his most wondrous and romantic tales.

And there, I believe, the two poles of modern fantasy stand defined. At one pole wait Wells and his honorable predecessors such as Swift; at the other, Burroughs and the commercial producers, such as Otis Adelbart Kline, and the weirdies, and horror merchants such as H.P. Lovecraft, and so all the way past Tolkien to today's non-stop fantasy worlders. Mary Shelley stands somewhere at the equator of this metaphor. ~ Brian W. Aldiss

I like certain subgenres within science fiction and fantasy, and one of those is urban fantasy, and another is steampunk. ~ Gail Carriger

Is this the bit where I get to say mwahaha? ~ Trevor Alan Foris

There's a lot of crap out there. Most of the science fiction films alone are abominations, you know. They're mindless. So you can't learn from those kinds of films. ~ Ray Bradbury

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his 'natural superiors,' and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, callous 'cash payment.' It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom - Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation. ~ Karl Marx

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Varzo looked with shame at her boots. "Look, I wasn't serious, alright? It was just a thought."

Mercy shook her head. "Shitty thoughts become shitty actions, kid. You really gone your entire life without recognizing there's ah link between the two? ~ Ash Gray

I tell you it's deadly when you start thinking your wife might be right. ~ Isaac Asimov

I did not fear that I might tread upon a live rail and be killed. I feared something far more intangible-doing what was not contemplated by the Machine. Then I said to myself, "Man is the measure", and I went, and after many visits I found an opening. ~ E. M. Forster

When a writer is already stretching the bounds of reality by writing within a science fiction or fantasy setting, that writer must realize that excessive coincidence makes the fictional reality the writer is creating less 'real.' ~ Jane Lindskold

There's always someone kicking guns. We wanted ["Badlands"] to be a world without guns and bullets, where martial arts was the form of fighting and defense and attack. Martial arts is king in this world. That was the first thing. We didn't want it to be a period piece either. We felt those are overdone and stuffy. That was what lead us to explore that area of science fiction and future, a world we can create and control. ~ Miles Millar

'Who are we?' And to me that's the essential question that's always been in science fiction. A lot of science fiction stories are - at their very best - evocations of that question. When we look up at the night sky and wonder, 'Is there anyone else out there?' we're also asking who we are we in relation to them. ~ David Gerrold

I was able to bring the souls from the past back to life.-Amaranth ~ Carolina Cody Aldaz

It is remarkable, however, that at the very lowest point of Kant's depression, when he became perfectly incapable of conversing with any rational meaning on the ordinary affairs of life, he was still able to answer correctly and distinctly, in a degree that was perfectly astonishing, upon any question of philosophy or of science, especially of physical geography, [Footnote: Physical Geography, in opposition to Political.] chemistry, or natural history. He talked satisfactorily, in his very worst state, of the gases, and stated very accurately different propositions of Kepler's, especially the law of the planetary motions. And I remember in particular, that upon the very last Monday of his life, when the extremity of his weakness moved a circle of his friends to tears, and he sat amongst us insensible to all we could say to him, cowering down, or rather I might say collapsing into a shapeless heap upon his chair, deaf, blind, torpid, motionless, - even then I whispered to the others that I would engage that Kant should take his part in conversation with propriety and animation. This they found it difficult to believe. Upon which I drew close to his ear, and put a question to him about the Moors of Barbary. To the surprise of everybody but myself, he immediately gave us a summary account of their habits and customs; and told us by the way, that in the word Algiers, the g ought to be pronounced hard (as in the English word gear). ~ Thomas De Quincey

I can't help what I have any more than you can help what you don't ~ Neal Shusterman

My brother Keith begged to go with us as usual. He'll turn thirteen in a few days - August 14 - and the thought of waiting two more years until he's 15 must seem impossible to him. I understand. Waiting is terrible. Waiting to be older is worse than other kinds of waiting because there's nothing you can do to make it happen faster. ~ Octavia E. Butler

The will of God or the lunacy of man - it seemed to him that you could take your choice, if you wanted a good enough reason for most things. Or, alternatively (and he thought of it as he contemplated the small orderliness of the cabin against the window background of such frantic natural scenery), the will of man and the lunacy of God. ~ James Hilton

Me, I have a science fiction writer's conviction that the damn robot is supposed to speak
human, not the other way around. ~ Spider Robinson

We as a race are the sole reason this planet is in the mess it is. ~ Trevor Alan Foris

Space was a hostile environment that required a sharp and cunning mind over prestige any day. That, and a shit load of weapons. ~ Kiersten Fay

Science fiction is anything published as science fiction. ~ Norman Spinrad

Where do I go from here? What road do I travel down where you are not by my side? What life do I lead where you are not there to guide me? ~ Halo Scot

A part of him felt she would always have been a mystery to him, elusive and enigmatic, but at the same time, she was comfortable as if they had been together for years. ~ Christine Feehan