Scifi Quotes

“This won’t work,” she said. “I’ve never had to work with something so small before.”

“That’s what she said,” murmured Gideon, sotto voce.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

“He urged again, “Thoughts?”

Gideon said, “Did you know that if you put the first three letters of your last name with the first three letters of your first name, you get ‘Sex Pal’?”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

“We had built here, in this half-ruined boat house on the edge of the Moray Firth, a temple to our own strange gods- to Chemistry and Anatomy and Electricity.”
― C.E. McGill, Our Hideous Progeny

“Why was I born so attractive?”

“Because everyone would have throttled you within the first five minutes otherwise,” said her necromancer.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

“I need you to trust me.

I need you to be trustworthy.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

“This calls for rigor, Nav."

"Maybe rigor…mortis," said Gideon, who assumed that puns were funny automatically.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

“Waves of probabilities blinked in red through the neural chip in her brain. Warnings. Three weeks earlier the software in her chip intuitively began calculating information on the feasibility of a coup d’état on this exact date, 7/13 at exactly 4 P.M.
"It’s Friday the 13th," Haisley realized, and looked to the clock in her neural chip, which read 12:12 P.M. Less than four hours away.
Her chip based the warnings on a conspiracy so cynical, so deceitful that no one could have imagined it. Even in a time known for deceitful conspiracies and great cynicism, this conspiracy was literally, unbelievable.
The conspiracy was found on the platform of a banned far-right group who followed “SUA,” which stood for “Save Us All.” SUA, supposedly at least, is a man from the future who argues that Socialists, like current President Sabina Xú Manzana, will take over and ruin America unless the future is altered by the American patriots who support General Schenk. The conspiracy was then cross-referenced to a PSYOP and a plot called the Constitutional Liberty Plan that only existed in a Pentagon-encrypted message board.

~Haisley II”
― Eamon Loingsigh, Democracy Jones: 7/13

“What would you do if you knew this was the last night of the world?”
― Ray Bradbury, The Last Night of the World

“He had given them everything that a human being had with the one exception of that most important thing of all -- the ability to exist within the human world.”
― Clifford D. Simak, Way Station

“Humankind crept back to the Moon in 2031 and touched down on Mars ten years later.”
― Marc J. Lipman

“George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again.

"You been crying" he said to Hazel.

"Yup," she said.

"What about?" he said.

"I forget," she said. "Something real sad on television."

"What was it?" he said.

"It's all kind of mixed up in my mind," said Hazel.

"Forget sad things," said George.

"I always do," said Hazel.

"That's my girl," said George.

He winced. There was the sound of a rivetting gun in his head.

"Gee - I could tell that one was a doozy," said Hazel.

"You can say that again," said George.

"Gee-" said Hazel, "I could tell that one was a doozy.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Harrison Bergeron

“They moved closer to the portal. Rising flights of steps, upside-down towers, doors opening to nowhere and anywhere: it was truly the representation of madness. If geometry can be evil, this was it.”
― James Mordechai

“You don't understand what I'm saying, do you? Or do you? I think you do. You know what power ideas have, and you don't have a lot of faith in the ability of humans to tell a good idea from a bad one. Well, neither do I, sometimes. But in the long run the bad idea will perish. That's been the story of human civilization for thousands of years. The good does prevail sooner or later, no matter what horrors have happened along the way. And so it's wrong to suppress an idea that may have value to the world. [--Look, Andrew: you're probably the closest thing to a human being that has ever come out of the factories of U. S. Robots and Mechanical Men. You're uniquely equipped to tell the world what it needs to know about the human0robot relationship, because in some ways you partake of the nature of each. And so you may help to heal that relationship, which even at this late date is still a very troubled one. Write your book. Write it honestly.”
― Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg

“...Of course, he'll have to begin filing income tax returns. But the revenue people aren't going to come around to find out whether Taxpayer Andrew Martin is a human being or not. All they'll care about is whether Taxpayer Andrew Martine pays his taxes on time.”
― Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, The Positronic Man

“Freedom is a priceless thing, Sir," Andrew said. "And the chance of gaining my freedom is worth any amount of money that I may possess.”
― Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, The Positronic Man

“No, he would simply go to town and use the public library. That was the proper self-reliant thing to do-- the correct way for a free robot to handle a problem, he told himself.
…
To the library, yes.
And he would dress for the occasion. Yes. Yes. Humans did not enter the public library unclothed. Neither would he.”
― Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, The Positronic Man

“They have all let me do what I delt I needed to do, Anfew thought, even when they privately disagreed with it. THey have granted me my wishes-- out of love for me.
Yes, love. For a robot.”
― Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, The Positronic Man

“They have all let me do what I felt I needed to do, Andrew thought, even when they privately disagreed with it. They have granted me my wishes-- out of love for me.

Yes, love. For a robot.

”
― Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, The Positronic Man

“A Lie (Artificial Intransigence) by Stewart Stafford

The morrow lies beyond
The grasp of our hands,
Fogged coastal shadows
Of mountains in distant lands.

Deities of tech Olympus,
Subhuman to simulated will?
Sage genius cannot tell,
But hubris claims to still.

The synthetic brainchild,
Squats on shoulders high
Of eyeless seers' vision,
Our sentient clone - AI.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Just a thought!

Let us travel from our sleep into a beautiful dream,
And let us then reside in a reality that is as beautiful as the most beautiful dream,
Let us bathe in the eternal sunlight,
And then let us fuse into one love light,
And spread everywhere,
Here, there, far and near,
Just you and me together and forever everywhere!”
― Javid Ahmad Tak, They Loved in 2075!

“They Loved in 2075

Reality is where we are,
Reality is who we are,
Reality is what we are,
Reality is always so near and never too far,
It nestles as much in peace as much in war,
And that is why it is important to know who we are,
The inhabitants of the Earth where we are,”
― Javid Ahmad Tak, They Loved in 2075!

“Ego-death is the loss of all anchoring to self,” May said, and as she took another hit of the bowl, she looked as though she were coming to some impossible realization. She spoke as if on autopilot while the rest of her seemed to contemplate the fringes of some great madness that had just clicked in her mind. “During ego-death, there is no more separation between the atoms composing the countless eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells of your body or the atoms composing the air exhausted by the eukaryotic bundles we call plants. There is just the field – the system itself. There is no more you. It’s...it’s not really possible to relate through language because it’s beyond language,” she said with a hint of sorrow, and as she turned to Matt, he noted that her eyes looked distant and afraid suddenly. “I’m sorry if this isn’t making sense,” she finished.”
― E.S. Fein, A Dream of Waking Life

“Now Kito saw it. The mass wasn’t homogenous at all; it was composed of endless cells, each remarkably similar to the mosquitoes of the old world. The mass of mosquitoes reared up, readying to strike the men and consume them whole. The mass lashed finally, but it didn’t go for the men. It was heading toward the other three, maybe for an easy meal.

The mass grew in density, then pinched itself off, part of it continuing toward their dead crewmates, the other part of it remaining inside the room with the men.

“Kito-kun!”

Kito didn’t hear her in his head this time; her voice had been real.

“Maggie?!” Hemmler gasped. “I…I hear you, baby! I hear you!”

The mass. Kito concluded that it was tailoring and changing itself to the specifics of each man’s mind. Kito heard it as Yui, and Hemmler heard Maggie. Was it already inside their heads?

“Kito-kun!”

Kito tried to hear her voice come from inside him, but the Yui in his memories was silent. There was only the voice coming from outside his own head–coming from the mosquito mass.

“Kito-kun!”

“Yes, Maggie! I’m here, baby! I’m here!” Hemmler shouted, a maniacal smile smeared across his face.

The mass began taking shape, molding into something coherent. It grew limbs, a head, fingers and toes. It grew skin and body hair. Its formless face became eyes and nose and forehead and smile.

Yui looked upon Kito Tanaka with giddy delight–a perfect reproduction down to the slight slant at the corner of her mouth.

“It’s me, Kito-kun…” Yui breathed.

Her naked body seemed like the only real thing in all the universe.”
― E.S. Fein, Ascendescenscion

“You are wicked," the man told the sky, offering it his flesh. To the sand his bones. To the desert his heart.

The woman ran as fast she could, but it made no difference. She screamed, and her pleading cries of agony reminded the man of the old world of creatures and beasts and beauty, the world he had ruined.

Now the Southern skies were cascading North, clashing with the northern winds like oceanic tidal waves meeting head on. There was nowhere left to run.”
― E.S. Fein, The Process is Love

“Fatherfucker!” Myriam roared at the beast.”
― E.S. Fein, Mendel's Ladder

“This is the way of humanity. It has always been this way. A cycle of golden age, recession, depression, revolution, expansion, and eventually another golden age before it all falls apart again. Ad infinitum.

In every human there is a want for more. A need for more. It is exactly that drive for more that allowed our species to crawl out of the primordial wilds. And it is exactly that want and need that drives me to ascension.

Were Astrea intended to last forever, it too would undergo the natural cycle of societal creation and destruction and would eventually fall to ruin, just as every human society of the past was eventually crippled and destroyed by humanity’s inherent failures.

But Astrea is a temporary refuge. A transient bastion that serves to buy me just enough time.

Time enough to break the cycle forever.”
― E.S. Fein, Mendel's Ladder

“You're a fucking God! . . . Do something Godly!”
― Jess-Liz Cross, Battle for the Photon Core

“سأسلّم قيادة نفسي إلى قلبي الآن، فقد تعب عقلي من المنطق، وتعبت أفكاري من التحليل والتدقيق، وتعبت نفسي من الانقياد وراء ما يريد الآخرون... سأتنفس هواء قلبي وأسبح في بحور روحي وأتّحدُ معها، وأتركها تختار الطريق... فطريق الروح هو أسمى طريق.”
― Nahla Elgawahergy

“A Dewbox bleeds when it receives a new file. Careful not to spill onto expensive equipment.”
― Tony Del Degan, In River Cardinal

“Think of it like standing in a room with mirrors on every wall. Each mirror reflects the other, and you, and every reflection of every mirror reflects the reflection of you. You’re in one of those reflections now, and I’m standing in the room, except all my walls are covered by curtains.”
― Tony Del Degan, In River Cardinal