Science Fiction Writer

Bertrand Russell

Philosophy

Analytic philosophy

1872–1970

"As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles."

🇺🇸Mark Twain

Literature

1835–1910

"There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory."

🇺🇸Carl Sagan

Science

1934–1996

"For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations."

🇫🇷Voltaire

Philosophy

Enlightenment

1694–1778

"The king has sent me some of his dirty linen to wash; I will wash yours another time."

🇺🇸Philip Roth

Literature

1933–2018

"The New York Times Featured Author: Philip Roth"

🇺🇸Thomas Pynchon

Literature

1760–1796

"Out and down in the colonies, life can be indulged, life and sensuality in all its forms, with no harm done to the Metropolis, nothing to soil those cathedrals, white marble statues, noble thoughts."

🇯🇵Haruki Murakami

Literature

Surrealism

b. 1949

"Being with her I feel a pain, like a frozen knife stuck in my chest. An awful pain, but the funny thing is I'm thankful for it. It's like that frozen pain and my very existence are one."

🇺🇸Gore Vidal

Literature

postmodern literature

1925–2012

"You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life, and I've been quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country."

🇬🇧Aldous Huxley

Literature

1894–1963

"Maybe this world is another planet’s hell."

🇺🇸Stephen King

Literature

b. 1986

"French is the language that turns dirt into romance."

🇨🇦William Shatner

Entertainment

b. 1931

"A friend of mine suffered from COPD. That's why I wanted to let you know about Inogen, a new way to have oxygen anytime, anywhere. Look into the difference Inogen can make for you."

🇺🇸Ursula K. Le Guin

Literature

1929–2018

"All men were alien one to another, at times, not only aliens."

🇧🇷Paulo Coelho

Science

1947–1985

"All my life I've learned to suffer in silence."

🇺🇸Glen Cook

Literature

b. 1944

"They could imagine no future more grim than their past."

🇺🇸Philip K. Dick

Literature

postmodern literature

1928–1982

"But an artist, he realized. Or rather so-called artist. Bohemian. That’s closer to it. The artistic life without the talent."

🇺🇸Vladimir Nabokov

Literature

modernism

1912–1977

"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness."

Douglas Adams

Literature

1853–1920

"WOKING To enter the kitchen with the precise determination to perform something only to forget what it is just before you do it."

🇺🇸Orson Scott Card

Literature

1951–2003

"For the first time I understood the haunting beauty of the song. It was the song of a killer who longed to die. It was the song of justice yearned for but not yet done."

🇺🇸Lois McMaster Bujold

Literature

b. 1949

"So in the physics of the heart, distance is relative; it’s time that’s absolute."

🇺🇸Robert E. Howard

Literature

1906–1936

"We’re making tin gods out of those poor buffoons in Hollywood; I dote on movies and appreciate the scanty art therein but I consider the profession about the most debased and debasing I know."

Ayn Rand

Philosophy

1905–1982

"When you consider socialism, do not fool yourself about its nature. Remember that there is no such dichotomy as “human rights” versus “property rights.” No human rights can exist without property rights."

🇺🇸Chuck Palahniuk

Literature

dirty realism

b. 1962

"History is is filled with brilliant people who wanted to fix things and just made them worse."

Samuel Butler (novelist)

Literature

1835–1902

"The pursuit of truth is chimerical. That is why it is so hard to say what truth is. There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth; what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of our ideas."

🇺🇸John Updike

Literature

modernist literature

1932–2009

"It is easy to love people in memory the hard thing is to love them when they are there in front of you."

🇺🇸Kim Stanley Robinson

Science

b. 1952

"Rituals should have some unpleasantness, or you don’t appreciate them properly."

🇬🇧Anthony Burgess

Music

1917–1993

"The window opened gently and a still Autumn night entered cat-like. Edwin smelt freedom and London autumn – decay, smoke, cold, motor oil."

🇬🇧Alan Moore

Literature

b. 1953

"There is a kind of synergy between the different forms of work, you’ll learn things from one sort of work that will have tremendous application in another. They all tend to pull each other forward."

Isaac Asimov

Science

1920–1992

"A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws."

E. M. Forster

Literature

Bloomsbury Group

1879–1970

"Axiom: Novel must have either one living character or a perfect pattern: fails otherwise."

🇩🇪Pat Murphy

Literature

b. 1955

"Piero was the sort of person that every religion needs but no religion likes. Thoughtful, rational, scientific. He asked questions and did not accept the easy answers on faith."

🇺🇸Jack Vance

Literature

1916–2013

"Evidently you do not trust me. This does not predispose me to trust you."

🇬🇧J. G. Ballard

Literature

1930–2009

"After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident."

🇺🇸Nathaniel Hawthorne

Literature

Romanticism

1804–1864

"Would Time but await the close of our favorite follies, we should all be young men, all of us, and until Doom's Day."

Joseph Conrad

fiction

modernist literature

1857–1924

"Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end."

🇺🇸James K. Morrow

Literature

b. 1947

"Let’s just hope that gravity isn’t as heavy as it used to be..."

🇺🇸James Branch Cabell

Literature

1879–1958

"Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice online at University of Virginia"

🇬🇧Michael Shea

Politics

1946–2014

"“Come on,” I said. “We have to try. The effort is utterly pointless, but inaction seems an even greater agony."

🇵🇱Stanisław Lem

Literature

1921–2006

"To replay human existence — fine, but to replay it in the way a drunk replays a corny tune, pushing coins over and over into the jukebox?"

🇬🇧Arthur C. Clarke

Literature

1917–2008

"There were some things that only time could cure. Evil men could be destroyed but nothing could be done about good men who were deluded."

🇨🇱Alejandro Jodorowsky

Religion

Surrealism

b. 1929

"That is the marvel of true art, that no one has yet found a way to commercialize it."