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

Fredric Brown: 22 quotes1 like

Famous Fredric Brown Quotes

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

Fredric Brown book The Mind Thing

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

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

Fredric Brown book The Mind Thing

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

“Are you interested in science?”

Fredric Brown book The Mind Thing

“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.”

Fredric Brown book The Lights in the Sky Are Stars

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.”

Fredric Brown book What Mad Universe

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.”

Fredric Brown

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.”

Fredric Brown book Martians, Go Home

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

“Yes, it was swell to sleep when you were looking forward to something. Time flies by and you don’t even hear the rustle of its wings.”

Fredric Brown

The Angelic Angleworm (p. 70)
Short fiction, From These Ashes (2000)

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

Fredric Brown

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

“Please concentrate on how the system is governed.”

Fredric Brown

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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