Frederik Pohl quotes - page 2

See, there's a bit of a problem here. It's true that editors are always begging for something new and different, but if you're dumb enough to try to give it to them they don't recognize it. When they ask for ‘different,' what they mean is something right down the good old ‘different' groove. (Frederik Pohl)
He said in an injured tone: "Mister, naturally the staff won't bother your stuff. What kind of a hotel do you think this is? "Of course, of course,” I said. But I knew he was lying, because I knew what kind of hotel it was. The staff was there only because being there gave them a chance to knock down more money than they could make any other way. What other kind of hotel was there? View quote
Frederik Pohl
I don't think you know what it's like to have someone head over heels in love with you. What's the good of a man who's upside down? View quote
Frederik Pohl
It was a nasty day in late December, just before the holidays. The weather was cold, wet, and miserable-well, I said it was London, didn't I? View quote
Frederik Pohl
She laughed out loud. It was a very nice laugh. No girl looks beautiful when she's laughing hard, and girls who worry about looking beautiful don't do it. Dorotha Keefer looked like a healthy, pretty girl having a good time, which when you come down to it is about the best way for a girl to look. View quote
Frederik Pohl
Scientists are an agnostic lot, of course-well, most educated people are, aren't they? View quote
Frederik Pohl
Our representative government now is perhaps more representative than it has ever been before in history. It is not necessarily representative per capita, but it most surely is ad valorem. If you like philosophical problems. Here is one for you: should each human being's vote register alike, as the lawbooks pretend and as some say the founders of our nation desired? Or should a vote be weighted according to the wisdom, the power, and the influence-that is, the money-of the voter? View quote
Frederik Pohl
That's power, Mitch, absolute power. And you know the old saying. Power ennobles. Absolute power ennobles absolutely. View quote
Frederik Pohl
Don Kayman was too good a scientist to confuse his hopes with observations. He would report what he found. But he knew what he wanted to find. View quote
Frederik Pohl
What will come of these things? That is a fair question. Unfortunately there is no answer. Not yet. If we knew the answer in advance, we would not have to perform the experiment. View quote
Frederik Pohl
Oh, it was work and no fooling. I enjoyed it very much, because I didn't have to do it. (Frederik Pohl)
Even money, thought Roger on the way back to his own office, is not a bad bet. Of course, it depends on the stakes. View quote
Frederik Pohl
See, we don't go in for your so-called ‘birth control' here. No abortion. No contraception. We accept the gift of life when it is given. We believe that every human being, from the moment of conception on, has a right to a life-although,” he added, "not necessarily a long one. View quote
Frederik Pohl
You could rule the nation-and yet you don't seem to go after that power.” The mayor frowned. "Power, Mrs. O'Hare? You mean the chance to make laws and compel others to do what you want them to? Why, good heavens, Mrs. O'Hare, who in his right mind would want that? View quote
Frederik Pohl
There's an editor for you. They're all the same. At first they're all honey and sweet talk, with those long alcoholic lunches and blue-sky conversation about million-copy printings while they wheedle you into signing the contract. Then they turn nasty. They want the actual book delivered. When they don't get it, or when the censors say they can't print it, then there isn't any more sweet talk and all the conversation is about how the aediles will escort you to debtors' prison. View quote
Frederik Pohl
She described herself as happy. This diagnosis did not come from any welling up of joy inside herself. It came from the observed fact, looking at herself objectively, that whenever she decided she wanted something she always got it, and what other definition of happiness could there be? View quote
Frederik Pohl
Increase of population was always good news to us. More people, more sales. Decrease of IQ was always good news to us. Less brains, more sales. View quote
Frederik Pohl
Specialization is the goal of civilization. View quote
Frederik Pohl
I found a man who claimed he used to be a radio engineer. And if he was an engineer, I was Albert Einstein's mother, but at least he knew which end of a soldering iron was hot. View quote
Frederik Pohl
I don't think the scientific method and the science fictional method are really analogous. The thing about them is that neither is really practiced very much, at least not consciously. But the fact that they are methodical does relate them. View quote
Frederik Pohl
If you don't care about science enough to be interested in it on its own, you shouldn't try to write hard science fiction. You can write like Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison as much as you want. (Frederik Pohl)
It's clear that science and science fiction have overlapping populations. View quote
Frederik Pohl
Stephen Hawking said he spent most of his first couple of years at Cambridge reading science fiction (and I believe that, because his grades weren't all that great). View quote
Frederik Pohl
That's the method: restructure the world we live in in some way, then see what happens. View quote
Frederik Pohl
When you spend weeks on end close to another person, so close that you know every hiccough, every smell and every scratch on the skin, you either come out of it hating each other or so deep in each other's gut that you can't find a way out. Klara and I were both. Our little love affair had turned into a Siamese-twin relationship. There wasn't any romance in it. There wasn't room enough between us for romance to occur. And yet I knew every inch of Klara, every pore, and every thought, far better than I'd known my own mother. And in the same way: from the womb out. I was surrounded by Klara. View quote
Frederik Pohl