Ben Bova > Quotes

“Red tape has killed more people than bullets...”
― Ben Bova, Millennium

“A fanatic who is willing to die for his cause thinks nothing of killing you for his cause.”
― Ben Bova, The Return

“The Old Ones knew that life is not rare, but precious; not fragile, but vulnerable. Life is as deep as the seas in which it was born, as strong as the mountains that give it shelter, as universal as the stars themselves.”
― Ben Bova, Mars Life

“In science there is a dictum: don't add an experiment to an experiment. Don't make things unnecessarily complicated. In writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the prose should be. Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story.”
― Ben Bova

“The art of fiction has not changed much since prehistoric times. The formula for telling a powerful story has remained the same: create a strong character, a person of great strengths, capable of deep emotions and decisive action. Give him a weakness. Set him in conflict with another powerful character -- or perhaps with nature. Let his exterior conflict be the mirror of the protagonist's own interior conflict, the clash of his desires, his own strength against his own weakness. And there you have a story. Whether it's Abraham offering his only son to God, or Paris bringing ruin to Troy over a woman, or Hamlet and Claudius playing their deadly game, Faust seeking the world's knowledge and power -- the stories that stand out in the minds of the reader are those whose characters are unforgettable.

To show other worlds, to describe possible future societies and the problems lurking ahead, is not enough. The writer of science fiction must show how these worlds and these futures affect human beings. And something much more important: he must show how human beings can and do literally create these future worlds. For our future is largely in our own hands. It doesn't come blindly rolling out of the heavens; it is the joint product of the actions of billions of human beings. This is a point that's easily forgotten in the rush of headlines and the hectic badgering of everyday life. But it's a point that science fiction makes constantly: the future belongs to us -- whatever it is. We make it, our actions shape tomorrow. We have the brains and guts to build paradise (or at least try). Tragedy is when we fail, and the greatest crime of all is when we fail even to try.

Thus science fiction stands as a bridge between science and art, between the engineers of technology and the poets of humanity.”
― Ben Bova

“As long as we're tied to Middle Eastern oil we're tied to Middle Eastern politics. We're hostages to the terrorists and nutcases who want to wipe out Israel and the United States because we support Israel.”
― Ben Bova, Powersat

“My first sight of the fabled warrior was a surprise. He was not a mighty-thewed giant, like Ajax. His body was not broad and powerful, as Odysseos'. He seemed small, almost boyish, his bare arms and legs slim and virtually hairless. His chin was shaved clean, and the ringlets of his long black hair were tied up in a silver chain. He wore a splendid white silk tunic, bordered with a purple key design, cinched at the waist with a belt of interlocking gold crescents... His face was the greatest shock. Ugly, almost to the point of being grotesque. Narrow beady eyes, lips curled in a perpetual snarl, a sharp hook of a nose, skin pocked and cratered... A small ugly boy born to be a king... A young man possessed with fire to silence the laughter, to stifle the taunting. His slim arms and legs were iron-hard, knotted with muscle. His dark eyes were absolutely humourless. There was no doubt in my mind that he could outfight Odysseos or even powerful Ajax on sheer willpower alone.”
― Ben Bova

“We try to teach our students how to think... how to use their brains and imagination. Individual subjects can always be learned by a man who knows how to learn. We teach them to think, and the other subjects arise by themselves...”
― Ben Bova, The Star Conquerors

“He did not appear to be a very tall man; what I could see of legs seemed stumpy, though heavily muscled. His chest was broad and deep. Later I learned that he swam in the sea almost every morning. His thick strong arms were circled with leather wristbands and a bronze armlet above his left elbow that gleamed with polished onyx and lapis lazuli... Puckered white scars from old wounds stood out against the dark skin of his arms, parting the black hairs like roads through a forest... Odysseos wore a sleeveless tunic, his legs and feet bare, but he had thrown a lamb's fleece across his wide shoulders. His face was thickly bearded with dark curly hair that showed a trace of grey. His heavy mop of ringlets came down to his shoulders and across his forehead almost down to his black eyebrows. Those eyes were as grey as the sea outside on this rainy afternoon, probing, searching, judging.”
― Ben Bova

“He was close enough so that I could see his face clearly, even with his helmet's cheek flaps tied tightly under his bearded chin. I looked into the eyes of Hector, prince of Troy. Brown eyes they were, the colour of rich farm soil, calm and deep. No anger, no battle lust. He was a cool and calculating warrior, a thinker among these hordes of wild, screaming brutes. He wore a small round shield buckled to his left arm instead of the massive body-length type most of the other nobles carried. In it was painted a flying heron, a strangely peaceful emblem in the midst of all this mayhem and gore.”
― Ben Bova

“And so, to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand.”
― Ben Bova, Voyagers III: Star Brothers

“Words are important he realized, especially in a nation ruled by its media.”
― Ben Bova, Mars

“You can't hate a man you understand.”
― Ben Bova, Return to Mars

“Lolling around libraries paging through books that haven’t been checked out since 1975 is one of my principal joys as a writer.”
― Ben Bova, Nebula Awards Showcase 2008

“The only thing he thinks of is himself, Stoner pointed out. In his deepest heart he does not regard anyone else as truly human; no one except himself. He is the center of his world. Everything and everyone else revolves around him.”
― Ben Bova, Voyagers III: Star Brothers

“The term sci-fi, which most science fiction writers loathe, I will reserve for those motion pictures that claim to be science fiction but are actually based on comic strips. Or worse.”
― Ben Bova, The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells

“It wasn’t Islamic fundamentalists. We have our own fanatics right here at home.”
― Ben Bova, Mars Life

“Nothing much,” said the yachtsman. “Merely fly out to the planet Saturn.”
― Ben Bova

“Science fiction stories are those in which some aspect of future science or high technology is so integral to the story that, if you take away the science or technology, the story collapses.”
― Ben Bova, The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells

“Palmer was talking with only the surface of his mind, his cheek muscles bobbing as if he were chewing his thoughts and finding them tough.”
― Ben Bova, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume Two-A: The Great Novellas

“You must love your neighbor as yourself, and you must love yourself as you love your God. Otherwise you get bureaucrats and swindlers and opinion polls and computer-generated graphs in place of helping the needy. Cold impersonal bureaucracies do not solve problems.”
― Ben Bova, Voyagers III: Star Brothers

“Isaac Newton had discovered that for every action there is an opposite reaction. Popular wisdom declared that every dark cloud has a silver lining.”
― Ben Bova, Voyagers III: Star Brothers

“Mollycoddle”
― Ben Bova, Venus

“Grant was torn loose from his foot restraints and went sailing across the bridge, optic fibers popping loose.”
― Ben Bova, Jupiter

“There are more than three hundred trillion cells in the human body. Counting ten cells per second, it would take more than a million years to count them all.”
― Ben Bova, The Exiles Trilogy

“the old joke about parachutes: If it doesn’t work, bring it back and we’ll give you a new one.”
― Ben Bova, Venus

“Leading her to the table, Rick poured a glass of champagne for her. As they touched glasses, he smiled and said, “Here’s looking at you, kid.” Yvonne positively glowed.”
― Ben Bova, My Favorites: An Anthology

“You scared the wits out of everyone, collapsing like that.” “How should I have collapsed?” I joked.”
― Ben Bova, Venus

“Every writer must bring three major factors to each story that he writes. They are ideas, artistry and craftsmanship.”
― Ben Bova, The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells

“It should be for you a sacred day when one of your people dies. You must then keep his soul as I shall teach you…for if this soul is kept, it will increase in you your concern and love for your neighbor.”
― Ben Bova, Voyagers III: Star Brothers