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Brian W. Aldiss: 232 quotes14 likes

“All the time, he hoped they would understand that his arrogance masked only shyness—or did he hope that it was his shyness which masked arrogance? He did not know.
Who could presume to know? The one quality holds much of the other. Both refuse to come forward and share.”

Brian W. Aldiss

“A Kind of Artistry” p. 185
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

“Many Franks of the sixteenth generation were killed in the muck of the trenches, he died not once but many times, developing an obsessive dread of war which never left him.
By the time the Americans entered the war, he was turning his many thoughts to politics.”

Brian W. Aldiss

Let's Be Frank (1957)

“All of which pointed to a moral that they should have learned long before, Arthur thought: Never trust a bunch of lousy politicians to do your thinking for you.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 6 (p. 171)

“One afternoon in early January, the weather showed a lack of character. There was no frost nor wind: the trees in the garden did not stir.”

Brian W. Aldiss

Report On Probability A (1968)

“A later generation could have explained the miracle to Sir Frank — though explaining in terms he would not have understood. Though he knew well enough the theory of family traits and likenesses, it would have been impossible then to make him comprehend the intricacy of a chromosome which carries inside it — not merely the stereotypes of parental hair or temperament — but the secret knowledge of how to breathe, how to work the muscles to move the bones, how to grow, how to remember, how to commence the processes of thought … all the infinite number of secret "how to's" that have to be passed on for life to stay above jelly level.
A freak chromosome in Sir Frank ensured he passed on, together with these usual secrets, the secret of his individual consciousness.”

Brian W. Aldiss

Let's Be Frank (1957)

“To be a standard shape is not all in life. To know is also important.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Hothouse

Source: Hothouse (1962), Chapter 5

“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.”

Brian W. Aldiss

“Man on Bridge” p. 92
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

“Jagger had gone through there. Harley also went through. Somewhere he did not know, somewhere whose existence he had not guessed.… Somewhere that wasn't the house.…”

Brian W. Aldiss book Outside

Outside (1955)

““The intelligent have been overwhelmed by the dull. Is that not an invasion?”
“More, I would say, of a self-betrayal.””

Brian W. Aldiss

“Man on Bridge” p. 83 (originally published in New Writings in SF 1, 1964)
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

““Are you a religious man, Joe?”
Flitch pulled a face. “I leaves that sort of thing to women.””

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 5 (p. 149)

“As Flitch dryly remarked when Greybeard commented on the graveyard, “Ah, they keep a-planting of ’em, but there ain’t any more of ’em growing up.””

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 5 (p. 148)

“There has always been a belief in miracles in the popular mind. As L. Sprague de Camp once said, the public would rather be bunked than debunked.”

Brian W. Aldiss

Science Fiction on the Titanic, in Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison (eds.) The Year's Best SF 9 (1976), ISBN 0-8600-7894-9, p. 205

“All of which makes one feel that the centuries of science upon which our western culture is based have travelled unmarked through the popular mind. A surprising number of people are willing to junk the entire accumulation of knowledge since Ancient Greece after watching Uri Geller perform for five minutes on their twenty-three inch screen.”

Brian W. Aldiss

Science Fiction on the Titanic, in Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison (eds.) The Year's Best SF 9 (1976), ISBN 0-8600-7894-9, p. 203

“Aldiss’s second law of thermo-linguistics states that what is most popular is rarely best and that what is best is rarely most popular.”

Brian W. Aldiss

Science Fiction on the Titanic, in Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison (eds.) The Year's Best SF 9 (1976), ISBN 0-8600-7894-9, p. 201

“The greatest human achievement is to fulfil one’s destiny.”

Brian W. Aldiss

Originally published in New Worlds Science Fiction, August 1965; reprinted in Michael Moorcock (ed.) Best SF Stories from New Worlds 4, p. 83
Short fiction, The Source (1965)

“There's a way outside. We're — we've got to find out what we are.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Outside

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!"
Outside (1955)