"Fiction is, the art of making up something. That's what it's all about, folks. Making stacks of money."

Michael Dirda Journalism See all quotes by Michael Dirda →

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“Science fiction is, after all, the art of extrapolation.”

“Off and on during my life, I have passed sleepless nights in making up lists of the dozen or so books a person might choose to take along if suddenly marooned on a desert island. This is a relatively easy game for serious readers: At least half the titles would be recognized classics — the Bible, Plato, Shakespeare, a good dictionary, that sort of thing. But occasionally I have made the challenge a little more difficult: "What if you could take just one book?”

Resonant Thoughts

"An artist who theorizes about his work is no longer artist but critic."

— H. G. Wells

Literature1866–1946

#art

"About the only thing Trump truly has in common with his base is that he feels every bit as aggrieved as they do, despite his endless privilege. No amount of money, fame or power has been enough to win…"

— Tony Schwartz (author)

Literature1952

#justice

"Chen is not only ahead of Steve Jobs in terms of turnaround speed, he has done something that both HP and Sun failed at: turned a hardware company into a software and services company, arguably someth…"

— Rob Enderle

Technology1954

#knowledge

"No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you r…"

— Chuck Palahniuk

Literature1962

#life