-
What would be the effect of gradually drawing away from the iron laws under which, since its scampering pleistocene infancy, humankind had lived?
Brian Aldiss -
However you envisage your role in life, all you can do is perform it as best you can.
Brian Aldiss
-
He let out a yell of joy. They danced round the room. Pressure of population was such that reproduction had to be strict, controlled. Childbirth required government permission. For this moment, they had waited four years. Incoherently they cried their delight.
Brian Aldiss -
You know why I am a prisoner-because the laws are so stupid that we prefer to break them than to live by them, although it means life-long imprisonment.
Brian Aldiss -
Science fiction is no more written for scientists that ghost stories are written for ghosts.
Brian Aldiss -
'They enjoy their show of might,' Adam said. 'These people have to express their unhappiness by using ugly things like guns and ill-fitting uniforms, and the whole conception of the camp.'
Brian Aldiss -
As long as the chromosome reproduced itself in sufficient dominance, he was immortal! To him, in an unscientific age, the problem did not present itself quite like that; but he realized that there was a trait to be kept in the family.
Brian Aldiss -
He gets bored with the effort of trying to think, and is unhappy because he knows thinking, or at least 'thinking-to-a-purpose' is on the black list of party activities.
Brian Aldiss
-
I am a writer and always was; being a writer is an integral part of my identity. Being published, being well regarded, is a component of that identity.
Brian Aldiss -
You are like all cruel men, sentimental; you are like all sentimental men; squeamish.
Brian Aldiss -
I kill from conviction, not to pass a personality quiz.
Brian Aldiss -
Insane? To disobey a law of the universe was impossible, not insane.
Brian Aldiss -
Relax, enjoy yourself. Have another drink. It’s patriotic to overconsume.
Brian Aldiss -
Writers must fortify themselves with pride and egotism as best they can. The process is analogous to using sandbags and loose timbers to protect a house against flood. Writers are vulnerable creatures like anyone else. For what do they have in reality? Not sandbags, not timbers. Just a flimsy reputation and a name.
Brian Aldiss
-
The ability to change should not be despised.
Brian Aldiss -
You were fool enough to think that one hundred and fifty million years either way made an ounce of difference to the muddle of thoughts in a man’s cerebral vortex.
Brian Aldiss -
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.
Brian Aldiss -
There was a time, two or three centuries ago, when it looked as if the intellect might win over the body, and our species become something worthwhile. But too much procreation killed that illusion.
Brian Aldiss -
It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting formulaic work, generating one's own creativity - that's a much tougher matter.
Brian Aldiss -
All over the world there must be far-reaching changes in animal behavior and habitat; if only one could have another life in which to chart it all....Ah, well, that’s not a fruitful thing to wish, is it?
Brian Aldiss
-
Keep violence in the mind where it belongs.
Brian Aldiss -
If we can see our difficulties, there is a way of resolving them, or the hope of a way.
Brian Aldiss -
The Badlands were extensive. Ancient bomb craters and soil erosion joined hands here; man’s talent for war, coupled with his inability to manage forested land, had produced thousands of square miles of temperate purgatory, where nothing moved but dust.
Brian Aldiss -
One afternoon in early January, the weather showed a lack of character. There was no frost nor wind: the trees in the garden did not stir.
Brian Aldiss