C. J. Cherryh quote: “For me the purest and truest art in the world is science fiction.”

“Science fiction is, after all, the art of extrapolation.”

Michael Dirda (1948) American literary critic

Introduction to the Everyman's Library edition of The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov, p. viii.

“I write fantasy. The only science fiction I have written is Fahrenheit 451. It's the art of the possible. Science fiction is the art of the possible. It could happen. It has happened.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

“Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

"The Imagination of Disaster" from Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966), p. 212
Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966)

“As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

The Paris Review interview (2010)
Context: Science Fiction is the fiction of ideas. Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and the next thing I know I’m borrowing energy from the ideas themselves. Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.

“First-rate science fiction was, and remains, more interesting than second-rate art.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Ibid.
Essays and reviews, From the Land of Shadows (1982)

“This is an exercise in fictional science, or science fiction, if you like that better. Not for amusement: science fiction in the service of science. Or just science, if you agree that fiction is a part of it, always was, and always will be as long as our brains are only miniscule fragments of the universe, much too small to hold all the facts of the world but not too idle to speculate about them.”

Valentino Braitenberg (1926–2011) Italian-Austrian neuroscientist

Source: Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology (1984), p. 1

“Science Fiction is the fiction of ideas.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

The Paris Review interview (2010)
Context: Science Fiction is the fiction of ideas. Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and the next thing I know I’m borrowing energy from the ideas themselves. Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.

“What they [critics of Lessing's switch to science fiction] didn't realize was that in science fiction is some of the best social fiction of our time.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

Boston Book Review interview by Harvey Blume http://www.dorislessing.org/boston.html (February 1998)

“There is no such thing as science fiction, there is only science eventuality.”

Steven Spielberg (1946) American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur

The Making of Jurassic Park

“Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

“For me the purest and truest art in the world is science fiction.”

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C. J. Cherryh 24

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