'm going to shut up for once and let science fiction's group mind take care of this issue's editorial, thanks to a wonderful new book from Pilgrim Award winner Gary Westfahl.
I've always felt that SF deserved its own incarnation of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, a thick volume that would mine the field's rich history for nuggets of wisdom on love, hate, war, peace and all other facets of the human condition. For decades, I've been teased by a variety of books that collected quotes, but up until now, none of them has done it with the seriousness or depth I was hoping for.
In 1985, Neil Gaiman and Kim Newman compiled Ghastly Beyond Belief: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of Quotations—but it was carved from the worst SF had to offer, and while amusing, it didn't fulfill my dream. In 1995, William Rostler came a little closer with Science Fictionisms, but it was a short, small book, just a taste of SF's finest, and not the full banquet we needed. Finally, Gary Westfahl has put together the book I've always wanted with Science Fiction Quotations, a massive compendium from Yale University Press.
Some of the quotes he's collected are famous lines taken from the stories we all already know and love:
Arthur C. Clarke: "Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out." ("The Nine Billion Names of God")
William Gibson: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." (Neuromancer)
Robert A. Heinlein: "Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith." (Stranger in a Strange Land)
J.R.R. Tolkien: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." (The Fellowship of the Ring)
Others are taken not from the fiction of the field, but from letters, speeches, introductions and the like:
Theodore Sturgeon: "Ninety percent of science fiction is crud. But then ninety percent of everything is crud, and it's the ten percent that isn't crud that is important, and the ten percent of science fiction that isn't crud is as good or better than anything being written anywhere." (1953 speech at the World Science Fiction Convention)
Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (Clarke's Third Law on UFOs, as recounted in a letter to Science)
Robert Silverberg: "The only workable time machine ever invented is the science-fiction story." (introduction to Trips in Time)
Words of wisdom
Of even greater value are the quotes we didn't know we knew, passages that are not in themselves famous, but which seem familiar because they manage to perfectly encapsulate universal truths about the way we live our lives.
Ursula K. Le Guin (upper left): "Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new." (The Lathe of Heaven)
Philip K. Dick (upper right): "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." (Valis)
Frank Herbert (lower left): "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." (Dune)
John Brunner: "There are two kinds of fool. One says, 'This is old, and therefore good.' And one says, 'This is new, and therefore better.'" (The Shockwave Rider)
Kim Stanley Robinson: "It's the love of right lures men to wrong." (Red Mars)
Orson Scott Card: "Human beings do metamorphose. They change their identity constantly. However, each new identity thrives on the delusion that it was always in possession of the body it has just conquered." (Xenocide)
Jane Yolen: "Fish are not the best authority on water." ("The White Babe")
Theodore Sturgeon: "People are living, growing things. I don't know a hundredth part of what you do about bonzai, but I do know this—when you start one, it isn't often the strong straight healthy ones you take. It's the twisted sick ones that can be made the most beautiful. When you get to shaping humanity, you might remember that." ("Slow Sculpture")
Samuel R. Delany (lower right): "Information is only meaningful when it is shared." ("Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones")
The next time that someone tries to tell me that science fiction is solely the literature of ideas, I'll remind them that it's the literature of poetry as well. And thanks to Gary Westfahl's Science Fiction Quotations, I'll have the evidence on hand to prove it to them.
Scott Edelman started his trek to the editor-in-chief position at Science Fiction Weekly decades ago, when he began working as an assistant editor at Marvel Comics. Between these two positions, this four-time Hugo Award nominee in the category of Best Editor was the founding editor of the award-winning magazine Science Fiction Age, in addition to editing Sci-Fi Universe, Sci-Fi Flix and Satellite Orbit. Currently, he also edits SCI FI, the official magazine of the SCI FI Channel. His most recent short story appears in the new issue of The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives.
