Science Fiction Quotes

“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.”
― Todor Bombov, Homo Cosmicus 2: Titan

“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.”
― Therisa Peimer, Taming Flame

“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.”
― Therisa Peimer, Taming Flame

“Trust is a strange bedfellow.”
― March Lions, The Last Sunset

“The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.”
― Larry Niven, Ringworld

“The truth has a way of coming out of the closet.”
― March Lions, The Last Sunset

“I feel like the Earth has cracked open and swallowed me into a bottomless abyss.”
― March Lions, The Last Sunset

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

“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.”
― Isaac Asimov

“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.”
― Scott Westerfeld, Uglies

“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.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Madness, and then illumination.”
― Orson Scott Card, Xenocide

“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.”
― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave

“A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.”
― Gene Roddenberry

“Nox didn’t say a word. He waited, counting the seconds in his mind. Sometimes you counted bullets and sometimes you counted time. Either one could kill you.”
― Dean F. Wilson, Rustkiller

“The silence just allowed the echoes of the question to play out in Nox’s mind, reminding him of his own unwinnable war against the never-ending tide of conmen and criminals. He was trying to clean up these parts, but every time he rubbed away a stain, he found another layer of dirt beneath. So, you could give up—or you could keep on scrubbing.”
― Dean F. Wilson, Coilhunter

“I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid I'll never get a chance to live!”
― A.A. Bell, Diamond Eyes

“One of the liberating effects of science fiction when I was a teenager was precisely its ability to tune me into all sorts of strange data and make me realize that I wasn’t as totally isolated in perceiving the world as being monstrous and crazy”
― William Gibson

“Beef had hit $300 a kilo. Not that he could recall the last time he’d tasted real beef.”
― Barry Kirwan, The Eden Paradox

“They must train you pretty good not to react to shit like that. Must take stuff out of you.” Vince’s eyes intensified then broke her gaze. ‘Actually, it’s more like they put stuff in.”
― Barry Kirwan, The Eden Paradox

“Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it really isn't about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. Maybe it isn't about who can sit and who has to kneel or stand or lie down, legs spread open. Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“People rarely search for bodies in ceilings…”
― Barry Kirwan, The Eden Paradox

“Science fiction is not prescriptive; it is descriptive.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“He wondered what his father had been thinking in those last final moments as he was slipping away, whether the heroism, the honour, the war, or maybe, just maybe, the smaller people in his life, his family.”
― Barry Kirwan, The Eden Paradox

“It's better to die in pursuit of your dreams than to live a life without hope.”
― Terry Brooks, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

“Why do humans never do as they're told? Someone should replace you all with robots. No, on second though, they shouldn't, bad idea.”
― Jonathan Morris, Doctor Who: Touched By An Angel

“General fiction is pretty much about ways that people get into problems and screw their lives up. Science fiction is about everything else.”
― Marvin Minsky

“Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible.”
― Rod Serling

“Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.”
― Bernard Beckett, Genesis

“What chilled my blood was a felt marker outline of a woman on the wall. Hands above the head, where there was a hook, then below the shape of the head, a neck strap. Then a waist strap, and two ankle clamps. The silhouette gave me no doubt that Gina had been confined here. But where was she now?”
― Grahame Shannon, Tiger and the Robot