Speculative Science Fiction Quotes

“Every animal's perception of the world, constructed by its evolved sensory apparatus and nervous system to take best advantage of its environment, is subjective - there are no colors out there, as we perceive them, waiting for us. There is no sound - only waveforms. And perhaps the strangest fact of all: Outside our bodies, there is no pain. Pain is something we create.”
― Ray Nayler, The Mountain in the Sea

“Inventions were not like your children. Your children were all your flaws shown to you in a way that made you love them: your worst made good. Inventions were your best attempt at beautiful thought. They were objective; they worked or they did not. They had purpose, whether they achieved it or not. They were yours always, in that they did not leave you, or turn away.”
― Erika Swyler, Light from Other Stars

“On this world, superior beings tend to destroy the less endowed, be they lower life forms or kindred spirits; across the Multiverse, this is not the case.”
― Eloah

“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, Drawing the Dragon

“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, Drawing the Dragon

“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, Drawing the Dragon

“Death still exists; what has disappeared is the certainty that everything will eventually end sooner or later. There's time to shave your head, time to let the gray hairs grow, time to get pregnant, to torture, to be the world champion, and to rewrite the encyclopedia. With patience, a single person could build the pyramids; with perseverance, another single person could knock them down. I guess destruction is another form of love.”
― Martín Felipe Castagnet, Los cuerpos del verano

“Here was the same sense of awe and mystery, and the sadness of the irrevocably vanished past. Yet the scale here was so much greater, both in time and in space, that the mind was unable to do it justice; after a while, it ceased to respond. Norton wondered if, sooner of later, he would take even Rama for granted.”
― Arthur C Clarke

“Evolution built advanced minds not once, but at least twice, gifting them not only to mammals and their kin, but also to cephalopods, and especially to the animal at the apex of ocean intelligence: the octopus. These are animals so unlike us that most aliens we imagine in our fantasies about outer space have more in common with humans. But there is no denying their sentience. I believe the first aliens we encounter will rise to greet us from the sea.”
― Ray Nayler, The Mountain in the Sea

“How far in the future TPMR [The Pleasure Model Repairman] is set is a trickier issue. The question goes right to the center of the maze, where the walls are painted with the glyphs of the thematic archetypes that matter to me most. Perception of time, the interplay of memory and identity, nostalgia as societal glue, and the pulpy residue of the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same. Of course, there is a straightforward answer that skirts all this voodoo babble, and it’s that this world must be very far into the future, indeed, given the sophistication of artificial beings and the sprawling family of development worlds called Earth.”
― Ruuf Wangersen, The Pleasure Model Repairman

“The narrative rigor of writing screenplays to a precise length, with story beats at all the right places has, I believe, made me a better novel writer. I feel very comfortable with the rhythms of the modern Hollywood movie, a sequence of storytelling expectations so many of us have internalized to the point that they can be deemed presumed knowledge in one's reader. It makes world building so much easier than it must have been for, say, Ray Bradbury, or even P K Dick. I feel quite comfortable straying from the narrative melody in my work, now, confident I can find my way home again, or can make my hat my home, story-wise, and that's something I tie in large measure to my screenwriting experience.”
― Ruuf Wangersen, The Pleasure Model Repairman

“The deity had the light, melodramatic voice of an artificial being programmed by a religious fanatic.”
― Storm Constantine, Hermetech

“A ground mist, morning white, hid all but a suggestion of landscape. A dreamer could imagine green fields might be there, trees with leaves, even animals moving slowly over the grass. Concentrate hard enough and the smell of living plants might be conjured up. A psychic could probably manage it, someone good with ghosts.

Leila Saatchi knew better.”
― Storm Constantine, Hermetech

“They had scorned the title scientist and dubbed themselves reality speculators.”
― Storm Constantine, Hermetech

“The Goddess didn’t dish out favours and punishments in accordance with a rigid dogma; she was merely a feeling, the spark inside that made you laugh and dance or kept you close to the earth like a cat, stalking and turned-on with power.”
― Storm Constantine, Hermetech

“She spoke to a woman whose strong, charismatic presence proclaimed her a noteworthy force within this group. The motivators were always easy to spot. The woman was tall, with a fierce, beautiful face, her functional khaki clothes draped with bright, fringed shawls. Ari was entranced by this dashing creature who stroke from menhir to menhir, running her long, strong fingers over the circuits, her thick, red hair wrapped up in a colourful scarf.”
― Storm Constantine, Hermetech

“Leila Saatchi never gave orders, never had to. It was a knack she had. Her suggestions were so compelling.”
― Storm Constantine, Hermetech

“A large part of her enjoyed the fearful excitement of being alone with this strange, powerful woman who could possibly be very dangerous. Wonder and fear: an intoxicating cocktail for someone who spent so much time alone.”
― Storm Constantine, Hermetech

“The group began to move, circling slowly, feeling with their hands for an invisible boundary. They were claiming the space for their own. There were no words, no verbal summoning of the elements. To Ari, this was something new; the silent, spiralling bodies describing the parameters of their temple. Then one by one, each member of the group spun in the middle of the circle, describing with gestures the sanctity of the chosen space, slowly whirling shapes of rags and hair.”
― Storm Constantine, Hermetech

“She was aware of all he was; a mind, thinking, impenetratable. Light played on his skin, deepening the hollows of his throat.”
― Storm Constantine, Hermetech

“She regarded herself as a true professional; 50 percent carbon-steel image, honed to glittering perfection, 45 per cent killer class business woman, 5 per cent dangerous psychotic.”
― Storm Constantine, Hermetech

“True. And there are an infinite number of universes, of course, in which we don't exist at all - that is, no creatures similar to us exist at all. In which the human race doesn't exist at all. There are an infinite number of universes, for instance, in which flowers are the predominant form of life -or in which no form of life has ever developed or will develop.”
― Fredric Brown, "FREDRIC BROWN" BOOKS: What Mad Universe / Space on My Hands / Honeymoon in Hell