Science Fiction Quotes

I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.

My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?

Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.

Friends are the family you choose (~ Nin/Ithilnin, Elven rogue).

Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.

If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.

Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.

Truthfully, Professor Hawking? Why would we allow tourists from the future muck up the past when your contemporaries had the task well in Hand?" Brigadier General Patrick E Buckwalder 2241C.E.

You know how sometimes you tell yourself that you have a choice, but really you don't have a choice? Just because there are alternatives doesn't mean they apply to you.

Here's a quick rule of thumb: Don't annoy science fiction writers. These are people who destroy entire planets before lunch. Think of what they'll do to you.

How inappropriate to call this planet "Earth," when it is clearly "Ocean.

We'd stared into the face of Death, and Death blinked first. You'd think that would make us feel brave and invincible. It didn't.

My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes.

Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction It is already happening to some extent in our own society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.

Everything's science fiction until someone makes it science fact.

People say, 'I'm going to sleep now,' as if it were nothing. But it's really a bizarre activity. 'For the next several hours, while the sun is gone, I'm going to become unconscious, temporarily losing command over everything I know and understand. When the sun returns, I will resume my life.' If you didn't know what sleep was, and you had only seen it in a science fiction movie, you would think it was weird and tell all your friends about the movie you'd seen. They had these people, you know? And they would walk around all day and be OK? And then, once a day, usually after dark, they would lie down on these special platforms and become unconscious. They would stop functioning almost completely, except deep in their minds they would have adventures and experiences that were completely impossible in real life. As they lay there, completely vulnerable to their enemies, their only movements were to occasionally shift from one position to another; or, if one of the 'mind adventures' got too real, they would sit up and scream and be glad they weren't unconscious anymore. Then they would drink a lot of coffee.' So, next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you're in a science fiction movie. And whisper, 'The creature is regenerating itself.

You need to read more science fiction. Nobody who reads science fiction comes out with this crap about the end of history

He who controls the spice controls the universe.

You're not a Quaker, Jeremy. I happen to know you put beer on your cornflakes.

(D)reams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't.

When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late.

A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.

I'm so proud of you I could burst, but in the interest of saving the poor cleaning staff the hassle, I would, instead, like to take you to our room and lick you from stem to stern until you beg me to stop.

We all know interspecies romance is weird.

If you're going to make a science fiction movie, then have a hover craft chase, for God's sake.

Loneliness becomes an acid that eats away at you.

We're not freaks, Tally. We're normal. We may not be gorgeous, but at least we're not hyped-up Barbie dolls.

She's just one of the plethora of women you rotate through your bed." Lily looked scared out of her mind as the queen changed direction and stalked her. "I will not allow you to besmirch the Esca name with your filthy plot to steal the prince.

Sometimes I think I must have a Guardian Idiot. A little invisible spirit just behind my shoulder, looking out for me...only he's an imbecile.

I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald's would still be open.

Her husband's visage captivated her from the first moment she saw him step out of the royal carriage a hundred years ago. How could it not? Flaminius was utterly gorgeous. But once she fell in love with him, she became happily enslaved.

One thing I have learnt is that you may do a lot of evil things, but if you are ever afforded a chance to be good, then you should take it. You will feel better about yourself.

Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books.

A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.

Tally smiled. At least she was causing trouble to the end. "I'm Tally Youngblood," she said. "make me pretty.

The mediator between head and hands must be the heart!

Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. ...Science fiction is central to everything we've ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don't know what they're talking about.

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.

Every morning when I wake up, I ask myself, "Why was I born?" Then I answer myself, "You were born to be successful." If you can learn to define your own success and not let others dictate it, you can find      fulfilment.

Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups... So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.

I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn't know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life, right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it's also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.

Isn’t that what it means to be a scientist? To push the boundaries of the unknown? To bravely, actively explore the enormity of our universe ?

Boson forces don't exist in Quantum space. The Light of the World is only found this side of the Timewall.

Are you afraid?" "Yes." "Energy never stops, remember. It just changes forms." "I am still afraid.

You are so... 11:59

The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the 'Star Spangled Banner', but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish.

We know you stood guard duty at the White House, Reuben. We have film of you urinating behind the bushes.

There is no end To what a living world Will demand of you.

Molly is not a Quaker, Jeremy. Quakers don't have tits that big.

Aurelia, not all those women are uppity aristocratic bitches. Most of them are normal nice girls trying to survive in shark-infested waters, so if you want to make a difference, why not go in there and change the way things work?" "How?" Marcus smiled deviously. "By unseating the queen bee and changing the rules." "That sounds like a great idea, Colonel. Lead me to the beehive.

You mean old books?" "Stories written before space travel but about space travel." "How could there have been stories about space travel before --" "The writers," Pris said, "made it up.

All he cares about here on the edge of forever, is her. He does not want to die. Not because he is afraid. Simply because he cannot bear the thought of leaving her behind.

When in doubt, be ridiculous.

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction -- its essence -- has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all.

Frankly, Olan couldn't hit a bull in the ass with a ping pong paddle.

She read paperbacks too, one after the next like she was chain-smoking—romance, science fiction, old pulp fantasy. All she wanted to do was sit, unbothered in a circle of lamplight, and live someone else’s life.

Who am I to deny gravity, Aurora? When you shine brighter than any constellation in the sky?

I can see why you like it here," he said,making a sweeping gesture that encompassed Kyle's collection of movie posters and science fiction books. "There's a thin layer of nerd all over everything." said Jace. "Thanks. I appreciate that." Simon gave Jace a hard look.

Books are keys that open many doors.

Somehow, creation manages to form without species intervention.

Trust is a strange bedfellow.

There is no universe per se. Nor is there a beginning, Big Bang or otherwise. We live in an energy field that recycles quarks, which format with given configurations, because they've done that before.

You might get only one shot. So shoot. You know who said that?" The rifle clatters to the bloody floor. "Hanna FUCKING Donnelly. That's who.

Keep those eyes of yours, mate, wide-fucking-open. Never know when it’s watching.

Each time Olan Chapman comes to life, his anti-quarks remain on the far side of the Time Wall. After his life cycle ends, his quarks collapse back to these roots, and – presto – America's most wanted man is ready for his next adventure.

Is this how humanity waves good-bye? Hell no.

She lowers the volume of this Safe and Top-Trending song titled... "Love Ain’t No Thang But a Chicken Wang.” 

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

He will tell you what's wrong in your society, who's to blame, and make you afraid of it, but he won't tell you how to fix it.

The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.

In my life I have found two things of priceless worth - learning and loving. Nothing else - not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake - can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say 'I have learned' and 'I have loved,' you will also be able to say 'I have been happy.

Be patient with him. If the same quality did not exist in you, you wouldn’t notice it in him.

Life is funny that way. Sometimes the dumbest thing you do turns out to be the smartest.

The truth has a way of coming out of the closet.

I feel like the Earth has cracked open and swallowed me into a bottomless abyss.

It’s pretty confusing.” “Good. Be confused. Confusion is where inspiration comes from.

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.

To catch a wild animal, you have to use the right bait. What happens to the bait? I haven't decided yet.

Yesterday, I asked a robot, Gumball I think, do you know Murphy’s law of gravitation? It answered, ‘No, sir, I know only Newton’s and Einstein’s laws of gravitation; I don’t know Murphy’s law.’ I replied, ‘Eh, Gumball, the slice always falls with the buttered side to the floor. That’s Murphy’s law.’” Everyone burst into laughter.

Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.

And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before--and thus was the Empire forged.

Madness, and then illumination.

I just saved your fucking life, Mom. . . . You could at least offer me an Oreo.

Right? I don’t know why I did it. Temporary insanity, maybe. Did you ever do something that makes absolutely no sense, but you couldn’t help yourself?

Beware: At war Or at peace, More people die Of unenlightened self-interest Than of any other disease.

No, look, there's a blue box. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It can go anywhere in time and space and sometimes even where it's meant to go. And when it turns up, there's a bloke in it called The Doctor and there will be stuff wrong and he will do his best to sort it out and he will probably succeed 'cause he's awesome. Now sit down, shut up, and watch 'Blink'.

There's the bullshit you know that you know; the bullshit you don't know and know you don't know; and the bullshit you just think you know but really don't.

We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams.

Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there, and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be.

Let’s get to know each other. My name’s William, William More, but you can call me Willy. I’m an engineer-chemist who graduated from MIT. So . . . but you’re all alike to me . . . of course, you would be . . . you’re robots. And all your names are that sort of, um . . . codes, technical numbers . . . I need some marker where I can pick you out. Well, well, to you I’ll call . . .,” and Willy pondered for a moment, “Gumball, yes, Gumball! Do you mind?” “No, sir, actually no,” CSE-TR-03 said, agreeing with its new given name. “Ah, that’s wonderful. And then you’re Darwin,” Willy said, accosting the second robot. “Look what a nice name—Darwin! What do you say, eh?” “What can I say, sir? I like it,” CSE-TR-02 agreed too. “Yes, a human name with a past . . . You and Gumball . . . are from the same family, the Methanesons!” “It turns out thus, sir,” Darwin confirmed its family belonging. “And you’re like Larry. You’re Larry. Do you know that?” More addressed the next robot in line. “Yes, sir, just now I learned that,” the third robot said, accepted its name as well.

Riza: Without his Alchemy he's just... Jean: A little brat who swears a lot Maes: An arrogant pipsqueak Roy: Useless. Just useless Alphonse: Sorry big brother, I don't know how to add to that... Ed *starts to cry*: YOU'RE ALL PICKING ON ME!!!

Madge: I don't know why I keep shouting at them. The Doctor: Because every time you see them happy you remember how sad they're going to be. And it breaks your heart. Because what's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later. The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later. ~ The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe

Your father always suspected that being pretty-minded is simply the natural state for most people. They want to be vapid and lazy and vain—Maddy glanced at Tally—and selfish. It only takes a twist to lock in that part of their personalities. He always thought that some people could think their way out of it.

While an elderly man in his mid-eighties looks curiously at a porno site, his grandson asks him from afar, “‘What are you reading, grandpa?’” “‘It’s history, my boy.’” “The grandson comes nearer and exclaims, “‘But this is a porno site, grandpa, naked chicks, sex . . . a lot of sex!’” “‘Well, it’s sex for you, my son, but for me it’s history,’ the old man says with a sigh.” All of people in the cabin burst into laughter. “A stale joke, but a cool one,” added William More, the man who just told the joke. The navigator skillfully guided the flying disc among the dense orange-yellow blanket of clouds in the upper atmosphere that they had just entered. Some of the clouds were touched with a brownish hue at the edges. The rest of the pilots gazed curiously and intently outwards while taking their seats. The flying saucer descended slowly, the navigator’s actions exhibiting confidence. He glanced over at the readings on the monitors below the transparent console: Atmosphere: Dense, 370 miles thick, 98.4% nitrogen, 1.4% methane Temperature on the surface: ‒179°C / ‒290°F Density: 1.88 g/cm³ Gravity: 86% of Earth’s Diameter of the cosmic body: 3200 miles / 5150 km.

Imagine you’re a fish, swimming in a pond. You can move forward and back, side to side, but never up out of the water. If someone were standing beside the pond, watching you, you’d have no idea they were there. To you, that little pond is an entire universe. Now imagine that someone reaches down and lifts you out of the pond. You see that what you thought was the entire world is only a small pool. You see other ponds. Trees. The sky above. You realize you’re a part of a much larger and more mysterious reality than you had ever dreamed of.

On the surface, I was calm: in secret, without really admitting it, I was waiting for something. Her return? How could I have been waiting for that? We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny. So must one be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox... Must I go on living here then, among the objects we both had touched, in the air she had breathed? In the name of what? In the hope of her return? I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained. I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures still awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.

...unfortunately, it's true: time does heal. It will do so whether you like it or not, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. If you're not careful, time will take away everything that ever hurt you, everything you have ever lost, and replace it with knowledge. Time is a machine: it will convert your pain into experience. Raw data will be compiled, will be translated into a more comprehensible language. The individual events of your life will be transmuted into another substance called memory and in the mechanism something will be lost and you will never be able to reverse it, you will never again have the original moment back in its uncategorized, preprocessed state. It will force you to move on and you will not have a choice in the matter.

Chuck skipped through the rest of the preamble to the actual examples Spaceguard had chronicled: “On March 23rd, 1989, an asteroid designated Asteroid 1989FC missed hitting the Earth by six hours. This little jewel packed the energy of roughly a thousand of the most powerful nuclear bombs, and the human race became aware of it shortly after its closest approach. Had this celestial baseball been only six hours later most of the population of the Earth would have been eliminated with zero warning.” “In October of 1990, an asteroid that would have been considered very small, struck the Pacific Ocean. This little fellow only packed the energy of a small atomic bomb, about the same as the one that flattened Hiroshima, and if it had arrived a few hours later or earlier it could have easily struck a city rather than making a relatively harmless splash into the center of the ocean. Remember, relatively here, is just a comparative term.”