John Sladek Quotes & Sayings

People have laughed at all great inventors and discoverers. — John Sladek

Whatever I'm reading at the moment seems to influence whatever I'm writing. — John Sladek

The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive. — John Sladek

SF has at least the advantage of not depending on preconceptions. — John Sladek

I found some time ago that I have to be careful, while working on a novel, what I read. — John Sladek

See, I have no journalism in my background, so I wasn't practised at research or writing non-fiction, nor at handling the truth in a journalistic way. Journalists know when to call a halt and write something, but I kept on looking for answers. — John Sladek

The problem and privilege we all have is being alive in this century and able to read this language. It makes any list meaningless except the list of an illiterate. — John Sladek

I think these days an SF connection would be a boost to other books; I'm sure more people have read my two little detective puzzles because of the SF connection. — John Sladek

I usually like whatever I've recently finished best. — John Sladek

I have a kind of standard explanation why, which goes like this: Science fiction is one way of making sense out of a senseless world. — John Sladek

Laugh if you will ... They laughed at all great ideas and inventions. They laughed at nitrous oxide. — John Sladek

R-4 got stuck on the First Law. "Can anyone really protect a human being from all harm whatever?" it thought. "No. It is inevitable that all humans must be injured, contract illnesses and ultimately die. The future can only be averted for humans who are already dead. Ergo ... " It took a dozen cops to subdue R-4, after his blood orgy in a department store (83 dead, none injured). — John Sladek

In most conventional novels, God is not allowed to be nuts. Nor are nuts allowed to be God. — John Sladek

To my mind, the best SF addresses itself to problems of the here and now, or even to problems which have never been solved and never will be solved - I'm thinking of Philip K. Dick's work here, dealing with questions of reality, for example. — John Sladek

We didn't have a phone when I was a kid, and I was too shy to smash any public phones, and our town didn't have a pool hall either, so I had to hang out at the public library - and anyway, I told myself stories. — John Sladek

Anything can happen in SF. And the fact that nothing ever does happen in SF is only due to the poverty of our imaginations, we who write it or edit it or read it. But SF can in principle deal with anything. — John Sladek

Most publishers seem very reluctant to publish short story collections at all; they bring them out in paperback, often disguised as novels. — John Sladek

This is mainly because I spend a lot of time writing and so don't have much time to read; I hate to waste that time reading what may turn out to be junk food for the mind, when there's so much real writing to be read. — John Sladek

As the semantic engineer, your job is naming the parts and tightening nuts and bolts. I suggest you get back to your office and do that - right now! — John Sladek

I started writing, or rather, thinking, stories as a child, and at that time the reason was very clear. — John Sladek