Fredric Brown Quotes

Fredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He is known for his use of humor and for his mastery of the "short short" form—stories of 1 to 3 pages, often with ingenious plotting devices and surprise endings. Humor and a somewhat postmodern outlook carried over into his novels as well. One of his stories, "Arena", is officially credited for an adaptation as an episode of the American television series Star Trek.

✵ 29. October 1906 – 11. March 1972

Works

The Mind Thing
The Mind Thing
Fredric Brown
Rogue in Space
Rogue in Space
Fredric Brown
Martians, Go Home
Martians, Go Home
Fredric Brown
Letter to a Phoenix
Fredric Brown
What Mad Universe
What Mad Universe
Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown: 22   quotes 1   like

Famous Fredric Brown Quotes

“Her life, except for reading, had been dull—but it had not been in vain.”

Source: The Mind Thing (1961), Chapter 20 (p. 570)

“The cat didn’t answer, except possibly by not answering.”

Source: The Mind Thing (1961), Chapter 15 (p. 534)

“Are you interested in science?”

“Of course I am. Who isn’t?”
Source: The Mind Thing (1961), Chapter 13 (p. 520)

Fredric Brown Quotes

“A lot of my childhood playmates ended up behind bars and I don’t mean as bartenders.”

Source: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (1953), Chapter 3, “1999” (p. 214)

“He could see now what a lot of his mistakes had been—laziness among them. And laziness is curable.”

Source: What Mad Universe (1949), Chapter 9 “The Dope on Dopelle” (p. 80)

“Well, let’s call his age as pushing sixty and not mention from which direction he was pushing it.”

The Ring of Hans Carvel (p. 637)
Short fiction, From These Ashes (2000)

“A new racket, probably. A depression breeds rackets as a swamp breeds mosquitoes.”

Part 2, Chapter 2 (p. 277)
Martians, Go Home (1955)

“The face of danger is brightest when turned so its features cannot be seen.”

Etaoin Shrdlu (p. 33)
Short fiction, From These Ashes (2000)

“Please concentrate on how the system is governed.”

Crag let his mind think about the two parties—both equally crooked and corrupt—that ran the planets between them, mostly by cynical horse trading methods that betrayed the common people on both sides. The Guilds and the Syndicates—popularly known as the Guilds and the Gildeds—one purporting to represent capital and the other purporting to represent labor, but actually betraying it at every opportunity. Both parties getting together to rig elections so they might win alternately and preserve an outward appearance of a balance of power and a democratic government. Justice, if any, obtainable only by bribery. Objectors or would-be reformers—and there weren’t many of either—eliminated by the hired thugs and assassins both parties used. Strict censorship of newspapers, radio and television, extending even to novels lest a writer attempt to slip in a phrase that might imply that the government under which he lived was less than perfect.
Source: Short fiction, Gateway to Glory (1950), pp. 610-611

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