Literary Quotes

Science Fiction

"A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope."

― Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle.

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 "Reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted."

― Joe Haldeman, The Forever War.

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"I'm not afraid of the dark I know. It's the dark I don't that terrifies me."

― Alan Dean Foster, Alien. 

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"My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression."

― Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 

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"Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic."

― Frank Herbert, Dune. 

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"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons."

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

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"A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced because they love their servitude."

― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.

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"All normal life, Peter, consciously or otherwise, resent domination. If the domination is by an inferior, or by a supposed inferior, the resentment becomes stronger."

― Isaac Asimov, I, Robot. 

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"Rorschach's Journal. October 12th, 1985: Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. the accumulated filth of all their filth and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!" and I'll look down and whisper "No". They had a choice, all of them. They could have followed in the footsteps of good men like my father, or President Truman. Instead, they followed the droppings of lechers and communists and didn't realize that the trail led over a precipice until it was too late. Don't tell me they didn't have a choice. Now the whole world stands on the brink staring down into bloody hell, all those liberals and intellectuals and smooth-talkers...and all of a sudden nobody can think of anything to say"