Damon Knight Quotes
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As his talent expands, some of his stories become pointed social commentary; some are surprisingly effective religious tracts, disguised as science fiction. Others still are nostalgic vignettes, but under it all is still Bradbury, the poet of 20th-century neurosis.
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He was going to die. His mind flinched back in horror from that, but it was still there, grinning, implacable. His body would rot under the ground, while delicious things were still happening in the sunlight.
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Science fiction is what we point to when we say it.
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A society that put more emphasis on birth than ability was likely to breed ability out of its ruling class.
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One of the great rewards of a writer's life is that it lets you read all the books you want to without feeling guilty.
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'Don’t lose your temper,' said Ruell evenly. 'It’s your worst fault, except for ignorance.'
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Voluntary birth control methods only work on the people who choose to use ’em. A population check that doesn’t work on everybody doesn’t work at all, because it simply breeds out the ones who use it. The only population check that really works is one that affects everybody, like a limit of space or food.
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You may stifle your creativity by learning too much about processes that should be spontaneous and automatic.
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There are 36 ways to tell this story. And all of them are disgusting.
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No progress, either moral or material, can be made in a world which is frozen, like ours, into a rigid mold of suppression of liberties.
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'It's a cookbook!'
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Eagles had made a realist of him. He believed in facts, and in altering your viewpoint to fit them, no matter what they were. That was the way you survived and stayed sane; it was hard, it meant sacrifices-he had already lost many things that he valued deeply-but it was the only way.
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We humanitarians, as our name suggests, believe that man has an ethical duty to man. We believe that the value of any system is measured by the consideration given to all human beings, not just to a favored class: and by that standard, our present system is a miserable failure.