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Brian Aldiss Quotes

1925–2017 England

Brian Wilson Aldiss (August 18, 1925 – August 19, 2017) was an English writer of general fiction and science fiction.

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Also known as: Aldiss, Brian, Aldiss, Brian Wilson

Random Brian Aldiss quote

93 quotes

Man was an accident on this world or it would have been made better for him!

Hothouse (1962)

Most SF is about madness, or what is currently ruled to be madness; this is part of its attraction — it's always playing with how much the human mind can encompass.

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

Greybeard (1964)

That is why you are so troubled. You see through the deception, yet you refuse to see through the deception.

Aboard the Beatitude (2002)

Poverty is the natural state for humanity. Wealth starts in the stomach and corrupts it.…

The Hungers of an Old Language (2013)

At least the mentor’s point was made: loneliness was psychological, not statistical.

Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

Happiness was simply something that occurred in a well-regulated life.

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.

Greybeard (1964)

When the first flint, the first shell, was shaped into a weapon, that action shaped man. As he molded and complicated his tools, so they molded and complicated him.

Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

You know that if you had been in charge of creation you would have found some medium less heart-breaking than Time to stage it in.

Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

The stone in my hand hides
A secret natural history:
Climates and times unknown,
A river unseen.

The Small Stones of Tu Fu (1978)

What were several fewer species of animals compared with a hundred-mile advance and another medal on another general?

Greybeard (1964)

Relax, enjoy yourself. Have another drink. It’s patriotic to overconsume.

Greybeard (1964)

He gets bored with the effort of trying to think, and is unhappy because he knows thinking, or at least “thinking-to-a-purpose” is on the black list of party activities.

Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

I was hardly fit for human society. Thus destiny shaped me to be a science fiction writer.

The Twinkling of an Eye: My Life as an Englishman (1998)

The only sort of tasks worth being set were impossible ones.

Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

It’s a national failing to think of politics as something that goes on in Parliament. It isn’t; it’s something that goes on inside us.

Greybeard (1964)

Insane? To disobey a law of the universe was impossible, not insane.

Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

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.

Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

That’s one thing about these religious boys—they reckon that if they are on God’s side, then the enemy must be on the devil’s, and so they have no qualms about giving it to ’em hot and strong.

Greybeard (1964)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Brian Aldiss (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.