Brian Aldiss Quotes

Whatever creativity is, it is in part a solution to a problem.

There are two kinds of writer: those that make you think, and those that make you wonder.

When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them, they show us the state of our decay.

Civilization is the distance man has placed between himself and his excreta.

The fatal error of much science fiction has been to subscribe to an optimism based on the idea that revolution, or a new gimmick, or a bunch of strong men, or an invasion of aliens, or the conquest of other planets, or the annihilation of half the world--in short, pretty nearly anything but the facing up to the integral and irredeemable nature of mankind--can bring about utopian situations. It is the old error of the externalization of evil.

Relax, enjoy yourself. Have another drink. It's patriotic to overconsume.

Science fiction is no more written for scientists than ghost stories are written for ghosts.

However you envisage your role in life, all you can do is perform it as best you can.

Why had I become a writer in the first place? Because I wasn't fit for society; I didn't fit into the system.

The day of the android has dawned.

My briefest ever definition of science fiction is 'Hubris clobbered by Nemesis.'

Its at night, when perhaps we should be dreaming, that the mind is most clear, that we are most able to hold all our life in the palm of our skull. I dont know if anyone has ever pointed out that great attraction of insomnia before, but it is so; the night seems to release a little more of our vast backward inheritance of instincts and feelings; as with the dawn, a little honey is allowed to ooze between the lips of the sandwich, a little of the stuff of dreams to drip into the waking mind.

That is why we dread children, even if we love them. They show us the state of our decay.

When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults.

Science fiction is the search for a definition of mankind and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post Gothic mode.

I've no objection to morality, except that it's obsolete.

It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting formulaic work, generating ones own creativity - thats a much tougher matter.

I was hardly fit for human society. Thus destiny shaped me to be a science fiction writer.

Keep violence in the mind Where it belongs (Barefoot in the Head)

To be a standard shape is not all in life. To know is also important.

Let's have a toast - to the future generation of consumers, however many heads or assholes they have!

It is at night... that the mind is most clear, that we are most able to hold all our life in the palm of our skull.

Science fiction is for real, space opera is for fun.

Most SF is about madness, or what is currently ruled to be madness; this is part of its attraction - it's always playing with how much the human mind can encompass.

That's the artist's role - to strike out always for something new, to break away, to defy, to... grapple with the unfamiliar.