Quotes & Sayings About Speculative Fiction

Quote from "Unexpected Tales from the Ends of the Earth":
"The only one everlasting love is the unrealized one. The love to this thing that you'd never had. Behind it is hidden the love to your own ego and feelings". — Alexandar Tomov

All because I fell in love with a madman. — Carrie Butler

By the end of Barber's talk, this event she's celebrating sounds like a product of the imagination of some master of speculative fiction like Philip K. Dick or Ray Bradbury - a mad dystopia in which feminist dreams have led to a forest full of separate clearings in which more and more women keep to smaller and smaller groups for fear of encountering difference. — Bruce Bawer

As the wind continued to howl and groan through her decaying body, she began to sing her story. — Ken Liu

At Tara in this fateful hour,
I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And the fire with all the strength it hath,
And the lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness:
All these I place,
By God's almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness! — Madeleine L'Engle

Speculative fiction is where my heart lies. It's what I read growing up, and it's what I read as an adult. — Patrick Rothfuss

The truth is that good fantasies carefully limit the magic that's possible. In fact, the magic has to be defined, at least in the author's mind, as a whole new set of natural laws that cannot be violated during the course of the story. That is, if at the beginning of the story you have established that your hero can make only three wishes, you better not have him come up with a fourth wish to save his neck right at the end. That's cheating, and your reader will be quite correct to throw your book across the room and carefully avoid anything you ever write in the future. All speculative fiction stories have to create a strange world and introduce the reader to it - but good fantasy must also establish a whole new set of natural laws, explain them right up front, and then faithfully abide by them throughout. — Orson Scott Card

It's Halloween, you can tell everyone you're going as your favorite Steampunck character."
"I don't even know what that is!"
"Because your generation has no taste in speculative science fiction. — Girl Vs Monster

Closed head trauma is about as much fun as nude paintballing. — D.C. Farmer

And the minibar in my hotel room was mysteriously emptied."
"By arcane forces beyond the understanding of normal human beings?" asked Myfanwy as she sifted through the in-box. It was the sort of question you learned to ask automatically when you worked with the Checquy.
"No, it was me," admitted Shantay without a shred of embarrassment. — Daniel O'Malley

One day, I decided to be an island. I took off my clothes and walked into the sea, then floated there, bobbing along with the tide, suspended by my inflatable tube and water wings. — Ng Yi-Sheng

This is more than an experience in the shadows of sleep. — Richard Bunning

I will put my hook in thy nose and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way which thou camest. 'Destroyer' thou hast embraced, and Abaddon shalt thou be. From the furnace of the Kiln wast thou taken and to the furnace of Hell shalt thou return. — Donovan M. Neal

An old adage warns: If you don't know your history, you will be forever condemned to repeat it. Likewise, if you don't know your science fiction, and heed its warnings, you could condemn the Earth to future catastrophe. — Kelly Steed

Science fiction - and the correct shortcut is 'sf' - uses actual scientific facts or theories for the source ideas or framework of the story. It has some scientific content, however speculative. If it breaks a law of physics, it knows it's doing so and follows up the consequences. If it invents a society of aliens, it does so with some respect for and knowledge of the social sciences and what you might call social probabilities. And some of it is literarily self-aware enough to treat its metaphors as metaphors. — Ursula K. Le Guin

If there's another writer, like Ross McDonald or Raymond Chandler, and all they're writing are mysteries, they won't be accepted," he said. "And that's problematic. A lot of so-called literary novels are just not very good. They're not well-written, they're not well-thought-out. They have pyrotechnics of intelligence.
"On the other hand, some of the best writers and speculative ideas are in science-fiction. The science-fiction genre is completely, completely segregated. And these people are writing good stuff. They're writing about where you're going, which means they're talking about where you are. — Walter Mosley

Matt shrugged. It was a good shrug, too. All it was missing was a beret, a stripy shirt and a Gauloise cigarette. — D.C. Farmer

The Hum-bird paused, a long needle sliding out of the hole in its beak. It bent quickly, poking the needle into Scarlett's face. Its head popped back up and then repeated the motion in three more spots on the Jordan's face before hopping to the other side and starting over.

It hopped back and forth a few more times, pausing now and then with its injector, plumping skin and filling the fine lines in Scarlett's face. After examining its works, the needle withdrew and another one protruded, glistening pink in the dimmed light. This time the Hum-bird hopped around, paralyzing any damaging nerve clusters that over time would be bound to cause wrinkles in the skin. — April Adams

Let the spirits guide you, but never let them take you. — E.J. Stevens

Is there any greater mystery than the separateness of each person? — Laura Van Den Berg

One second she's all timid, and then reeoowr! Hellcat. — Carrie Butler

The sky is the limit only for those who aren't afraid to fly! — Bob Bello

War has always been a part of science fiction. Even before the birth of SF as a standalone genre in 1926, speculative novels such as 'The Battle of Dorking' from 1871 showed how SF's trademark 'what if' scenarios could easily encompass warfare. — Paul Di Filippo

If you write thrillers or mysteries or horror fiction or quote-unquote speculative fiction, men might read you, and the 'Times' might notice you. — Jennifer Weiner

Because there wasn't anything else to do, he settled at the kitchen table
with a bottle of mead and nearly emptied it. The anesthetic effect he hoped for hadn't happened, though. At least not yet. — Ann Gimpel

If the world explore all my dark fantasy, will change for the better. — Alexandar Tomov

I wrote speculative fiction because I loved to read it, and thought I could do better than some of the people who were getting published. — Fred Saberhagen

Rigorous extrapolation, a gosh-wow love of gadgets, and mystical adventures in strange and mysterious places; every major stream in speculative fiction today can be traced back to authors who were writing before the publishing categories existed. From among the readers in the twenties and thirties who loved any or all of these authors arose the first generation of "science fiction writers", who knew themselves to be continuing in a trail that had been blazed by giants. — Orson Scott Card

My writing objective is to remove the stage and sing, dance, laugh and cry with the audience as one spirit. — Cathie Wright-Lewis

It is as it is. Betren son of Bromwell Defender of Delmarath — Cynthia Willerth

I think speculative fiction has fewer unspoken prerequisites than literary fiction for writers of color. — Nnedi Okorafor

When she sat down on the tile next to him, unafraid, his kaleidoscope senses drank in the years that had been printed onto her mind before she was old enough to remember, and he told her a story, projecting into her darkness sensations of light and color and shape, butterflies swirling like silk-spun gold out through a window that opened to a big green field in the days before the bomb. — Mel Paisley

My hopes for pie died on the sidewalk. There went my grin. — Carrie Butler

Soon we were downloading ourselves
into laptops, phones or pads, freer
than we had hoped,

floating centrifugally across the Internet
to swim alongside forgotten
selfies, spam emails and porn — Cyril Wong

Seriously man, what are you waiting for? Get in there - or I will. - Marek Montvene — J.C. Morrows

Hades cracked his knuckles on each hand, and the noise was like gunpowder caps exploding in the silence. "First dish duty," he mumbled to himself, "now possessed cowboys. This just isn't my night. — Josh Strnad

There is more to be pondered in the grain and texture of life than traditional fiction allows. The work of essayists is vital precisely because it permits and encourages self-knowledge in a way that is less indirect than fiction, more open and speculative. — Charles J. Shields

We've been surrounded by images of space our whole lives, from the speculative images of science fiction to the inspirational visions of artists to the increasingly beautiful pictures made possible by complex technologies. But whilst we have an overwhelmingly vivid visual understanding of space, we have no sense of what space sounds like. — Honor Harger

We are all of the same substance, the same life. Though there are many differences between us, those are merely the shadows that delineate our boundaries. Our light is the same. — Sally Wiener Grotta

Speculative fiction encompasses that which we could actually do. Sci-fi is that which we're probably not going to see. — Margaret Atwood

The whole world's a ghost factory. We all fade like the paint on these buildings, sometimes from too much sun, sometimes from too little. We blur and blend to the murky shades left behind when something vivid dies. — Will Ludwigsen

Speculative fiction by definition is geared toward an audience that wants strangeness, an audience that wants to spend time in worlds that absolutely are not like the observable world around them. — Orson Scott Card

What I found in the form is that shorter works inspire far more immersion than the time it takes to read them. The work is but a seed. Planted, the central element of the speculative fiction is left to grow. The impact of a great short story happens days and often years later. Rather than have the author hand every answer on a silver platter, she buries it and allows your mind and your life experiences to handle the rest. There — Samuel Peralta

Before starting work on this book, we had to ask ourselves a question what is science fiction? Seemingly simple, but in reality the answer was hard to formulate. This is the definition we settled upon:
Science fiction is a member of a group of fictional genres whose narrative drive depends upon events, technologies, societies, etc. that are impossible, unreal, or that are depicted as occurring at some time in the future, the past or in a world of secondary creation. These attributes vary widely in terms of actuality, likelihood, possibility and in the intent with which they are employed by the creator. The fundamental difference between science fiction and the other "fantastical genres" of fantasy and horror is this: the basis for the fiction is one of rationality. The sciences this rationality generates can be speculative, largely erroneous, or even impossible, but explanations are, nevertheless, generated through a materialistic worldview. The supernatural is not invoked. — Stephen Baxter

There are three phrases that make possible the world of writing about the world of not-yet (you can call it science fiction or speculative fiction; you can call it anything you wish) and they are simple phrases: What if . . . ? If only . . . If this goes on — Ray Bradbury

No, no, it's not in books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into on garment for us. — Ray Bradbury

Good fantasy fiction: ... explores real human conditions through fantastic metaphors which universalize the characters' individual experiences to speak personally to us all. — Laura Resnick

Regardless of religion (or lack thereof), lovers of speculative fiction will swallow up these provocative stories. - Erin O'Riordan, — Tim Lieder

With timid curiosity, I asked, what do you mean the old bodies get reused? — Andrew Cormier

I've loved sci-fi and speculative fiction since I was a kid. It was inevitable I'd try my hand at it at some point. — Rick Yancey

To my surprise, the sensation of query filled my stomach, spreading through to every corner. This was followed by each point of query ending at the same answer. Device Nineteen had responded to the question by coming to the conclusion that oblivion was the end of every path.
Great. My roommate's an emo.>
My stomach reviewed the comment and rumbled queries to various parts of the diamond, but most were returned unanswered because the required systems were not yet online. — J. Cameron McClain

There's more to research than just looking up facts. Eventually, you have to make subjective calls. If you're writing a science fiction novel, there's probably some speculative technology in it. You'll have to decide how to project existing technology forward in a plausible way. — Andy Weir

You sit beside the sorcerer, your love, and unzip your ribs. Tucked under your heart is a small oak box, plain and unvarnished. You offer it to the sorcerer. 'I brought this for you. — A. Merc Rustad

Speculative fiction includes all stories that take place in a setting contrary to known reality. — Orson Scott Card

Speculative fiction both requires and rewards an open mind. — Steven Poore

Hmph. Even the animals deserted me.
I'd have deserted me, too, a different inner voice inserted dryly. The way I
banged around in here wanting to kill something - anything - if only it would bring Aislinn back to me. Fionn understood at a level beyond reckoning that if he ever laid eyes on Travis again, the Hunter would be dead before he saw what hit him. — Ann Gimpel

In my imagination, the Editor meditated in a mountain-cave, espoused the rules of grammar, and frowned upon speculative fiction. — Josh Malerman

I mean, that was the code, wasn't it? Single girls and taken guys weren't allowed to be friends. The leash always got in the way. — Carrie Butler

I shake my head and rub the bridge of my nose. "There's a whole lot more at stake here than just my happiness, so I'll let the doctors do whatever tests they want and answer any questions they have. But after that we save the world. And then we move on, okay? — Kara Swanson

It's nice to be nice. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

As a writer of fiction who deals with technology, I necessarily deal with the history of technology and the history of technologically induced social change. I roam up and down it in a kind of special way because I roam down it into history, which is invariably itself a speculative affair. — William Gibson

Funny, they made this new genre called Speculative Fiction, I thought all fiction had always been speculative. — Teri Louise Kelly

Even in forgetting there is an aspect of recollection, a faded few moments of wispy consciousness clung like webs in high-vaulted chambers, moving ever so lightly with the draft. — Jeffrey Panzer

I can think of no series of words that could appear in a piece of naturalistic fiction that could not also appear in the same order in a piece of speculative fiction. I can, however, think of many series of words that, while fine for speculative fiction, would be meaningless as naturalism. Which then is the major and which the subcategory? — Samuel R. Delany

On the far side of the bay was the command station that controlled the door, which was currently semi-open. Rather than the normal closed maw of steel, there was a network of pulsing gold veins crisscrossing the gaping mouth of black - a nitrogen membrane keeping the molecular air contained and pressurized while allowing aircraft to pass through. — April Adams

[sic] his reaction was a sign of civilization. Nobody reaches for a gun anymore, just for his lawyer. — Peter F. Hamilton

[T]he new weird represents a productive experiment in fantasy fiction. The New Wave of the 1960s and 1970s arguably embodied science fiction's claim to literary 'seriousness.' This desire for seriousness is not snobbery, as sometimes suggested by folks who overemphasize the entertainment function of speculative fiction; it's about recognition of the vast possibilities within the field. — Darja Malcolm-Clarke

He felt a psychosomatic rush of emptiness before he spoke. "Since we are getting to the real point, I am not stupid John. And it would be foolish to think me ignorant. Isn't this about the Science Nation interview? Isn't this because I mistakenly used the word "soul?" Isn't this about you and the others thinking somewhere along the lines, I had gained an imaginary soul? We all know when you gain a soul, you lose a mind. Don't we john?"
John hesitated briefly staring at Roma. "I believe so yes. Souls are luxuries for speculative minds. Real scientists can't afford such luxuries. They have the world to save."
Roma narrowed his eyes. "Or destroy. — Dew Platt

Reading about Bordertown was the first time I saw people like me in speculative fiction. Messed-up kids, making messsed-up choices. I couldn't be a magician's apprentice or a pig keeper who might or might not be a king's son or a princess with a prophecy hanging over my head. But I could, maybe, somehow, be part of a community of artists who loved magic. — Holly Black

Humans are strange. ... They value punishment because they think it means their actions are important - that they are important. ... it's vanity. — Robert Jackson Bennett

In many ways sci-fi is a natural progression from the magical worlds we inhabited as children. Speculative fiction opens up parallel universes to which we can escape and exercise our love for all things beyond our ken. close off these speculative worlds at your peril. — Ella Berthoud

Scarlett activated the viola and it came down like short shimmering curtain that covered her eyes with a band of violet light. It dilated her eyes, increasing her binocular summation so that everything in her field of vision was magnified and clear. It also protected her retinas from any sort of laser fire or plasma flash. — April Adams

People won't change until the pain of not changing is greater than the pain changing brings. — Just B. Jordan

I am chaos in this ordered society, the flaw in a carefully wrought plan. I am turbulence in the queen's eternal river. — Eugie Foster

The new day is almost here, but the old one is still dragging its heavy skirts. Just as ocean water and river water struggle against each other at a river mouth, the old time and the new time clash and blend. — Haruki Murakami

First contact comes not by hand of man, but by metal of machine. — Ryan Sean O'Reilly