Brian Aldiss quotes - page 3

Perhaps the first fire, the first tool, the first wheel, the first carving in a limestone cave, had each possessed a symbolic rather than a practical value, had each been pressed to serve distortion rather than reality. It was a sort of madness that had driven man from his humble sites on the edges of the woods into towns and cities, into arts and wars, into religious crusades, into martyrdom and prostitution, into dyspepsia and fasting, into love and hatred, into this present cul-de-sac; it had all come about in pursuit of symbols. In the beginning was the symbol, and darkness was over the face of the Earth. (Brian Aldiss)
Frank's chromosome was now breeding as true as ever. Blood group, creed, colour of skin - nothing was proof against it. The numbers with shared consciousness, procreating for all they were worth, trebled every generation. View quote
Brian Aldiss
One of the characteristics of age was that all avenues of talk led backward in time. View quote
Brian Aldiss
It [i. e., his look] held the fatal mixture of stupidity and cunning that lurks at the bottom of all evil. View quote
Brian Aldiss
You know why I am a prisoner-because the laws are so stupid that we prefer to break them than to live by them, although it means life-long imprisonment. View quote
Brian Aldiss
You were fool enough to think that one hundred and fifty million years either way made an ounce of difference to the muddle of thoughts in a man's cerebral vortex. View quote
Brian Aldiss
In the extraordinary ancestral compost heap of your unconscious mind, I have burrowed too long. View quote
Brian Aldiss
The thing was not discussable, even with a near acquaintance like Calvin because ... because of the nature of the thing ... because one had to behave like a normal, unworried human being. That at least was sound and clear and gave him comfort: behave like a normal human being. View quote
Brian Aldiss
You see life as a contrast between misery and pleasure, Jon; that is not a correct interpretation.” "It's a pretty good rule of thumb, I should have thought.” "Thought and non-thought is the only valid line of comparison.” "Bit of a bird's-eye view, isn't it? That puts us on the same level as the proles. View quote
Brian Aldiss
They enjoy their show of might,” Adam said. "These people have to express their unhappiness by using ugly things like guns and ill-fitting uniforms, and the whole conception of the camp. View quote
Brian Aldiss
He gets bored with the effort of trying to think, and is unhappy because he knows thinking, or at least "thinking-to-a-purpose” is on the black list of party activities. (Brian Aldiss)
The midwife bustled out to the four in the antechamber and announced that the Almighty (who had recently become a Protestant) had seen fit to bless milady with a son. View quote
Brian Aldiss
What would be the effect of gradually drawing away from the iron laws under which, since its scampering pleistocene infancy, humankind had lived? View quote
Brian Aldiss
As long as the chromosome reproduced itself in sufficient dominance, he was immortal! To him, in an unscientific age, the problem did not present itself quite like that; but he realized that there was a trait to be kept in the family. View quote
Brian Aldiss
Why don't you go somewhere quietly and consult your history books if you have no consciences to consult? View quote
Brian Aldiss
Digging deep in a Martian desert men discovered an enormous brain. It suddenly started to think at them - So they covered it up again... View quote
Brian Aldiss
Men left their strange hobbies on Earth and Venus and projected themselves into the pattern. Their entire personalities were merged with the texture of space itself. Through science, they reached immortality. It was a one-way passage. They did not return. Each Involute carried thousands or even millions of people. There they were, not dead, not living. How they exulted or wept in their transubstantiation, no one left could say. Only this could be said: man had gone, and a great emptiness was fallen over Earth. View quote
Brian Aldiss
I kill from conviction, not to pass a personality quiz. View quote
Brian Aldiss
Sounds to me as if you want journalists,” Timberlane said. "No, sir, we require steady men with integrity. This is not a scoop, it's a way of life. View quote
Brian Aldiss
Did the others here feel the disquiet he felt? Had they a reason for concealing that disquiet? And another question: Where was "here"? He shut that one down sharply. Deal with one thing at a time. Grope your way gently to the abyss. Categorize your knowledge. View quote
Brian Aldiss
You know that if you had been in charge of creation you would have found some medium less heart-breaking than Time to stage it in. (Brian Aldiss)
Many Franks of the sixteenth generation were killed in the muck of the trenches, he died not once but many times, developing an obsessive dread of war which never left him. By the time the Americans entered the war, he was turning his many thoughts to politics. View quote
Brian Aldiss
There was a time, two or three centuries ago, when it looked as if the intellect might win over the body, and our species become something worthwhile. But too much procreation killed that illusion. View quote
Brian Aldiss
Jagger had gone through there. Harley also went through. Somewhere he did not know, somewhere whose existence he had not guessed.... Somewhere that wasn't the house.... View quote
Brian Aldiss
As Flitch dryly remarked when Greybeard commented on the graveyard, "Ah, they keep a-planting of 'em, but there ain't any more of 'em growing up.”. View quote
Brian Aldiss