Quotes by Brian W. Aldiss

“Wells is teaching us to think. Burroughs and his lesser imitators are teaching us not to think. Of course, Burroughs is teaching us to wonder. The sense of wonder is in essence a religious state, b...”

“The misfortune of a young man who returns to his native land after years away is that he finds his native land foreign; whereas the lands he left behind remain for ever like a mirage in his mind.Ho...”

“We can no longer believe that after death, if we have sinned, we shall enter hell. Hell has been acted out here on Earth in the time of Nazi Germany, when even the innocent went in their millions t...”

“An overcrowded world is the ideal place in which to be lonely.”

“It's a funny thing in my job: you remain perpetually lonely in a world where loneliness is the rarest commodity.”

“When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them. They show us the state of our decay.”

“The fatal error of much science fiction has been to subscribe to an optimism based on the idea that revolution, or a new gimmick, or a bunch of strong men, or an invasion of aliens, or the conquest...”

“Science fiction is for real, space opera is for fun.”

“Science fiction is no more written for scientists than ghost stories are written for ghosts.”

“The misfortune of a young man who returns to his native land after years away is that he finds his native land foreign; whereas the lands he left behind remain for ever like a mirage in his mind.Ho...”

“It's a funny thing in my job: you remain perpetually lonely in a world where loneliness is the rarest commodity.”