Brian W. Aldiss: Trending quotes

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Brian W. Aldiss: 232 quotes14 likes

“In the extraordinary ancestral compost heap of your unconscious mind, I have burrowed too long.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Hothouse

Source: Hothouse (1962), Chapter 23

“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.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Outside

Outside (1955)

“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.…"”

Brian W. Aldiss book Outside

Outside (1955)

“You see life as a contrast between misery and pleasure, Jon; that is not a correct interpretation.”
“It’s a pretty good rule of thumb, I should have thought.”
“Thought and non-thought is the only valid line of comparison.”
“Bit of a bird’s-eye view, isn’t it? That puts us on the same level as the proles.”

Brian W. Aldiss

“Exactly.”
“Man on Bridge” p. 89
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

“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 W. Aldiss

“Man on Bridge” p. 89
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

“Carnage added to carnage does not equal peace.”

Brian W. Aldiss

“Basis for Negotiations” p. 152
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

“One of the objections I have against Campbell's Astounding was that there was too little love in it. It was a very loveless magazine. They never took enough account of the feeling that is always in SF.”

Brian W. Aldiss

"In Conversation: Brian Aldiss & James Blish" in Cypher (October 1973)

“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 W. Aldiss

“Man on Bridge” p. 88
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

“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.”

Brian W. Aldiss

Let's Be Frank (1957)

“That first novel of mine, Non-Stop, is directly attributable to Heinlein. His "Common Sense" seemed to me such a good story, but bereft of any human feelings. I thought long about that story, and then I thought how wonderful it would be to write about a spaceship in which people have been imprisoned for generations and to put in something of the human feeling. So that novel is directly attributable to Heinlein. I thought, in my youthful arrogance, that I could do it better — I didn't! I thought I could do it differently, and I think I did do it differently. And I suppose that on the whole, I've concentrated on doing things differently ever since.”

Brian W. Aldiss

Locus interview (2000)

“Why should you be confused just because you come from a confused civilization?”

Brian W. Aldiss

“Poor Little Warrior!” p. 78 (originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1958)
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

“What would be the effect of gradually drawing away from the iron laws under which, since its scampering pleistocene infancy, humankind had lived?”

Brian W. Aldiss

“Man in His Time” p. 209
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

“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 W. Aldiss

Let's Be Frank (1957)

“Why don’t you go somewhere quietly and consult your history books if you have no consciences to consult?”

Brian W. Aldiss

“Basis for Negotiations” p. 122
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

“Relax, enjoy yourself. Have another drink. It’s patriotic to overconsume.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 4 (p. 121)

“Digging deep in a Martian desert
men discovered an enormous brain.
It suddenly started to think at them —
So they covered it up again…”

Brian W. Aldiss

"The Deceptive Truth", The Dark Sun Rises (2002)

“Let’s have a toast—to the future generation of consumers, however many heads or assholes they have!”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 4 (p. 112)

“Men left their strange hobbies on Earth and Venus and projected themselves into the pattern. Their entire personalities were merged with the texture of space itself. Through science, they reached immortality.
It was a one-way passage.
They did not return. Each Involute carried thousands or even millions of people. There they were, not dead, not living. How they exulted or wept in their transubstantiation, no one left could say. Only this could be said: man had gone, and a great emptiness was fallen over Earth.”

Brian W. Aldiss

“Old Hundredth” p. 162
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

“I was hardly fit for human society. Thus destiny shaped me to be a science fiction writer.”

Brian W. Aldiss

The Twinkling of an Eye: My Life as an Englishman (1998) Unsourced variant: "Why had I become a writer in the first place? Because I wasn't fit for society; I didn't fit into the system."

“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 W. Aldiss

"In Conversation: Brian Aldiss & James Blish" in Cypher (October 1973); republished in The Tale That Wags the God (1987) by James Blish