Alfred Bester Quotes & Sayings

If you can have everything at fifty that you wanted when you were fifteen, you're happy. — Alfred Bester

Make it a human war,' she said fiercely. 'You're the first not to be deceived by my looks. Oh God! The boredom of the chivalrous knights and their milk-maid passion for the fairy tale princess. But I'm not like that ... inside. I'm not. I'm not. Never. Make it a savage war between us. Don't win me ... destroy me! — Alfred Bester

This is Armageddon ... Flowering Monstrosity. Tell me what you see." "There's — Alfred Bester

One of the things that everybody knows about space travel but never mentions is its aphrodisiac quality. — Alfred Bester

We always do what's natural, only sometimes we shouldn't do it. — Alfred Bester

This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living and hard dying ... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice ... but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks ... but nobody loved it. — Alfred Bester

Listen," he cried in exaltation. "Listen, normals! You must learn what it is. You must learn how it is. You must tear the barriers down. You must tear the veils away. We see the truth you cannot see ... That there is nothing in man but love and faith, courage and kindness, generosity and sacrifice. All else is only the barrier of your blindness. One day we'll all be mind to mind and heart to heart ... — Alfred Bester

I challenge you, me. Die or live and be great. — Alfred Bester

It's been suggested that most women fail to write significantly because the female mind is viscerotonic, and occupied almost exclusively with the moment-to-moment reality of emotions. If this is true, literature's loss is science fiction's gain, for Out of Bounds, Judith Merril's collection of short stories, is a warm and colorful rendering of the minutiae of the future. — Alfred Bester

I'm a great believer in people and their untapped potential. — Alfred Bester

Are you that dreadful man with the circus, Fourmyle?" "Sure you are. Smile." "I am, madam. You may touch me." "Why, you actually seem proud. Are you proud of your bad taste?" "The problem today is to have any taste at all." "The problem today is to have any taste at all. I think I'm lucky." "Lucky but dreadfully indecent." "Indecent but not dull." "And dreadful but delightful. Why aren't you cavorting now?" "I'm 'under the influence,' Madam." "Oh dear. Are you drunk? I'm Lady Shrapnel. When will you be sober again?" "I'm under your influence, Lady Shrapnel." "You wicked young man. Charles! Charles, come here and save Fourmyle. I'm ruining him. — Alfred Bester

He was Gully Foyle, the oiler, wiper, bunkerman; too easy for trouble, too slow for fun, too empty for friendship, too lazy for love. — Alfred Bester

Century also had shelves of obsolete printed books. — Alfred Bester

Most science fiction, quite frankly, is silly nonsense. — Alfred Bester

Dazzlement and enchantment are Bester's methods. His stories never stand still a moment; they're forever tilting into motion, veering, doubling back, firing off rockets to distract you. The repetition of the key phrase in "Fondly Fahrenheit," the endless reappearances of Mr. Aquila in "The Star-comber" are offered mockingly: try to grab at them for stability, and you find they mean something new each time. Bester's science is all wrong, his characters are not characters but funny hats; but you never notice: he fires off a smoke-bomb, climbs a ladder, leaps from a trapeze, plays three bars of "God Save the King," swallows a sword and dives into three inches of water. Good heavens, what more do you want? — Alfred Bester

Cellar Christians!" Foyle exclaimed. He and Robin peered through the window. Thirty worshipers of assorted faiths were celebrating the New Year with a combined and highly illegal service. The twenty-fourth century had not yet abolished God, but it had abolished organized religion.
"No wonder the house is man-trapped," Foyle said. "Filthy practices like that. Look, they've got a priest and a rabbi, and that thing behind them is a crucifix."
"Did you ever stop to think what swearing is?" Robin asked quietly. "You say 'Jesus' and 'Jesus Christ.' Do you know what that is?"
"Just swearing, that's all. Like 'ouch' or 'damn.'"
"No, it's religion. You don't know it, but there are two thousand years of meaning behind words like that."
"This is no time for dirty talk," Foyle said impatiently. "Save it for later. Come on. — Alfred Bester

It was an age of freaks, monsters, and grotesques. All the world was misshapen in marvelous and malevolent ways. — Alfred Bester

You are the first to arrive alive in fifty years. You are a puissant man. Arrival of the fittest is the doctrine of the Holy Darwin. Most scientific. — Alfred Bester

We prattle about free will, but we're nothing but response ... mechanical reaction in prescribed grooves. — Alfred Bester

The mind is the reality. You are what you think. — Alfred Bester

I'm not much interested in extrapolating science and technology; I merely use extrapolation as a means of putting people into new quandaries which produce colorful pressures and conflicts. — Alfred Bester

Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts. — Alfred Bester

Now don't warp your orbit, Mac. — Alfred Bester

Why is life? Don't ask about it. Live it. — Alfred Bester

Intellect is the ability to avoid belaboring the obvious. — Alfred Bester

They were blind to a cold fact of evolution ... that progress stems from the clashing merger of antagonistic extremes, out of the marriage of pinnacle freaks. — Alfred Bester

The test of intellect is the refusal to belabor the obvious. — Alfred Bester

He was afflicted with an education and a sense of humor. He was inspired by a purpose. He was armed with a phone book. He was doomed. — Alfred Bester

Damn you!" Dagenham raged, "Don't you realize that you can't trust people? They don't know enough for their own good." "Then let them learn or die. We're all in this together. Let's live or die together. — Alfred Bester

Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place,
The stars my destination. — Alfred Bester

If a man's got talent and guts to buck society, he's obviously above average. You want to hold on to him. You straighten him out and turn him into a plus value. Why throw him away? Do that enough and all you've got left are the sheep. — Alfred Bester

The damnable frustration of revenge. Revenge is for dreams ... never for reality. — Alfred Bester

But in order to be an iconoclast, an author must be more than merely aware of the idol he wishes to destroy. He must be intimate with it and understand it in all its aspects. This means that he must have devoted serious thought to it, and have beliefs of his own which will stand up in the place of the broken idol. In other words, any child can complain, but it takes an adult to clash with accepted beliefs ... an adult with ideas. — Alfred Bester

It was not exasperation.... It was anger for the relentless force of evolution that insisted on endowing man with increased powers without removing the vestigial vices that prevented him from using them. — Alfred Bester

Faith in faith' he answered himself. 'It isn't necessary to have something to believe in. It's only necessary to believe that somewhere there's something worthy of belief. — Alfred Bester

There is no sun. — Alfred Bester

I'm treating you like a relative. I don't pay enough for the privilege. — Alfred Bester

It's obvious we can't all be a Gully Foyle, but most of us energize at such a low level, so far short of our real capabilities, we could all be more, do more. — Alfred Bester

You pigs, you. You rut like pigs, is all. You got the most in you, and you use the least. You hear me, you? Got a million in you and spend pennies. Got a genius in you and think crazies. Got a heart in you and feel empties. All a you. Every you ... '
[ ... ]
Take a war to make you spend. Take a jam to make you think. Take a challenge to make you great. Rest of the time you sit around lazy, you. Pigs, you! All right, God damn you! I challenge you, me. Die or live and be great. Blow yourselves to Christ gone or come and find me, Gully Foyle, and I make you men. I make you great. I give you the stars. — Alfred Bester

The acid of fury ran through him, eating away the brute patience and sluggishness that had made a cipher of Gully Foyle, precipitating a chain of reactions that would make an infernal machine of Gully Foyle. He was dedicated. — Alfred Bester

I'm not a robot. I'm a freak of the universe ... a thinking animal ... and I'm trying to see my way clear through this morass. — Alfred Bester

Millions for defense, but not one cent for survival. — Alfred Bester

There's got to be more to life than just living," Foyle said to the robot.
"Then find it for yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts."
"Why can't we all move forward together?"
"Because you're all different. You're not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow."
"Who leads?"
"The men who must ... driven men, compelled men."
"Freak men."
"You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory."
"Thank you very much."
"My pleasure, sir."
"You've saved the day."
"Always a lovely day somewhere, sir," the robot beamed. Then it fizzed, jangled, and collapsed. — Alfred Bester

We don't punish criminals in our enlightened age, we cure 'em; and the cure is worse than punishment. — Alfred Bester

I've handed life and death back to the people who do the living and the dying. — Alfred Bester

Be grateful that you only see the outward man. Be grateful that you never see the passions, the hatreds, the jealousies, the malice, the sicknesses ... Be grateful you rarely see the frightening truth in people. — Alfred Bester

The man who gives his own decisions priority over society is a criminal. — Alfred Bester

You can tell when a Hollywood historical film was made by looking at the eye makeup of the leading ladies, and you can tell the date of an old science fiction novel by every word on the page. Nothing dates harder and faster and more strangely than the future. — Alfred Bester

You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory. — Alfred Bester

Eight, sir; seven, sir; Six, sir; five, sir; Four, sir; Three, sir; Two, sir; one! Tenser, said the Tensor. Tenser, said the Tensor. Tension, apprehension, And dissension have begun. — Alfred Bester

Vorga, I kill you filthy. — Alfred Bester

The whole point of extravagance is to act like a fool and feel like a fool, but enjoy it. — Alfred Bester

Millions for nonsense, but not one cent for entropy. — Alfred Bester