Brian Aldiss Quotes
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The midwife bustled out to the four in the antechamber and announced that the Almighty (who had recently become a Protestant) had seen fit to bless milady with a son.
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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.
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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.
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However you envisage your role in life, all you can do is perform it as best you can.
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'There's a way outside. We're - we've got to find out what we are.' His voice rose to an hysterical pitch. He was shaking Calvin again. 'We must find out what's wrong here. Either we are victims of some ghastly experiment - or we're all monsters!'
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Poor little warrior, science will never invent anything to assist the titanic death you want in the contra-terrene caverns of your fee-fi-fo-fumblingly fearful id!
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That house, whatever it was, was the embodiment of all the coldness in his mind. Harley said to himself: 'Whatever has been done to me, I've been cheated. Someone has robbed me of something so thoroughly I don't even know what it is. It's been a cheat, a cheat.…'
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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.
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Obeying an inalienable law, things grew, growing riotous and strange in their impulse for growth.
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To be a standard shape is not all in life. To know is also important.
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If we can see our difficulties, there is a way of resolving them, or the hope of a way.
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The thing was not discussable, even with a near acquaintance like Calvin because … because of the nature of the thing … because one had to behave like a normal, unworried human being. That at least was sound and clear and gave him comfort: behave like a normal human being.
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The shuffle only demonstrated people’s fatuous belief in a political cure for a human condition.
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Why don’t you go somewhere quietly and consult your history books if you have no consciences to consult?
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I'm lucky that SFWA has such a short memory. I was always the Young Turk, the gadfly. Part of the New Wave, although I didn't fit in there either! I spent years, and two histories, putting the so-called Old Guard in their place, and now I'm one of them!
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It was extraordinary to be in two places at once, doing two different things - extraordinary, but not confusing. He merely had two bodies which were as integrated as his two hands had been.
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Most of my poetry lies beyond the SF field, yet here I am corralled into 'SF poetry' as part of this poetry weekend. Of course, some might say, 'you've made your own bed - now you must lie in it!' But, while fully accepting that dictum, I'm not yet quite prepared to lie down...
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It’s a national failing to think of politics as something that goes on in Parliament. It isn’t; it’s something that goes on inside us.