“Science fiction writers thought it would be possible. H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, and other authors found ways to get people to the moon. But none of those writers foresaw any possibility of the lunar explorers being able to communicate with Earth, transmit data, position information, or transmit moving pictures of what they saw back to Earth. The authors foresaw my part of the adventure, but your part was beyond their comprehension.”

40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing (2009)

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Neil Armstrong32

American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon 1930–2012

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“Sometimes I feel that a more rational explanation for all that has happened during my lifetime is that I am still only thirteen years old, reading Jules Verne or H. G. Wells, and have fallen asleep.”

Stanislaw Ulam (1909–1984) Polish-American mathematician

Preface To the 1983 Edition, p. xxvii
Adventures of a Mathematician - Third Edition (1991)

“What the planning authority would have to know would not be the mere totals but the distinct, peculiar conditions prevailing in each enterprise which affect the information about values transmitted through market prices but would be completely lost in any statistical information about quantities that might reach the authority from time to time.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1980s and later, "Two Pages of Fiction" (1982)

“I'm the most translated writer in the world, behind Lenin, Tolstoy, Gorki and Jules Verne. And they're all dead…”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

Crime Time interview (2001)

“Let me end with… man's ageless fantasy, to fly to the moon…. Plutarch and Lucian, Ariosto and Ben Jonson wrote about it, before the days of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells and science fiction. The seventeenth century was heady with… fables about voyages to the moon. Kepler wrote one full of deep scientific ideas… wrote… The Discovery of a New World. They did not draw a line between science and fancy… they all tried to guess where… earth's gravity would stop. Only Kepler understood that gravity has no boundary, and put a law to it—… the wrong law.
All this was a few years before Isaac Newton was born, and it was all in his head that day in 1666, when he… came to conceive… that the moon is like a ball… thrown so hard that it falls exactly as fast as the horizon… he went on to calculate how long… the distant moon would take to round the earth… [T]he imagination that day chimed with nature, and made a harmony.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

"The Reach of Imagination" (1967)

“Chesterton and Tolkien and Lewis were, as I’ve said, not the only writers I read between the ages of six and thirteen, but they were the authors I read over and over again; each of them played a part in building me. Without them, I cannot imagine that I would have become a writer, and certainly not a writer of fantastic fiction. I would not have understood that the best way to show people true things is from a direction that they had not imagined the truth coming, nor that the majesty and the magic of belief and dreams could be a vital part of life and of writing.
And without those three writers, I would not be here today. And nor, of course, would any of you. I thank you.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

"Mythcon 35 Guest of Honor Speech", in Mythprint (October 2004)

“If the moon and earth were not retained in their orbits by their animal force or some other equivalent, the earth would mount to the moon by a fifty-fourth part of their distance, and the moon fall towards the earth through the other fifty-three parts, and they would there meet, assuming, however, that the substance of both is of the same density.”

Johannes Kepler book Astronomia nova

As quoted by Bryant, ibid.
Astronomia nova (1609)

“For He foresaw that many would pay Him homage because of His glory in heaven, but that their homage would be vain, so long as they despise His members on earth”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

On the Mystical Body of Christ <br class="br">Context: What is the use of believing, if the dost blaspheme? Thou adorest Him as Head, and dost blaspheme Him in His body. He loves His body. Thou canst cut thyself off from the body, but the Head does not detach itself from its body. "Thou dost honor me in vain," He cries from heaven, "thou dost honor Me in vain!" If someone wished to kiss thy cheek, but insisted at the same time on trampling thy feet; if with his hailed boots he were to crush thy feet as he tries to hold thy head and kiss thee, wouldst thou not interrupt his expression of respect and cry out: "What are thou doing, man? Thou art trampling upon me!" …<br>It is for this reason that before He ascended into heaven our Lord Jesus Christ recommended to us His body, by which He was to remain upon earth. For He foresaw that many would pay Him homage because of His glory in heaven, but that their homage would be vain, so long as they despise His members on earth. (pp. 436-437) http://books.google.com/books?id=CIosAAAAIAAJ&q=%22their+homage+would+be+vain,+so+long+as+they+despise+His+members+on+earth%22&dq=%22their+homage+would+be+vain,+so+long+as+they+despise+His+members+on+earth%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3AIXUd70C4mi8QTi2IC4Cg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA

“Asimov: I don't know of any science fiction writer who really attempts to be a prophet. Such authors accomplish their tasks not by being correct in their predictions, necessarily, but merely by hammering home—in story after story—the notion that life is going to be different.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Mother Earth News interview (1980)

“Science fiction these days is only half a step ahead of science. Astrophysicists and scientists are working in the same way as science fiction writers. They’re working things out in their imagination based on the slim scientific facts that they know. Hawking imagines a black hole and then discovers the mathematics that support his theory, and new possibilities come to light. That’s the imaginative flair that scientists have to have. For me as a sci-fi writer, spinning those ideas in your mind brings you to the point where you dream in science fiction. Suddenly you think of something in the middle of the night, and it’s so vivid you don’t need to write it down because you know you’ll remember it in the morning. That’s what these books, Zero G, reflect: a vivid imagination.”

William Shatner (1931) Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author, and film director

"William Shtner on Sci-Fi, Aging and the Environment" http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/08/22/in-the-magazine/shatner.html as interviewed by Jeanne Wolf, Saturday Evening Post, September/October 2017

“As Jules Renard said, no matter how much care an author takes to write as few books as possible, there will be people who haven’t heard of some of them.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“You Are Cordially Invited”
Flying to America: 45 More Stories (2007)

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