Brian Aldiss

“The fatal error of much science fiction has been to subscribe to an optimism based on the idea that revolution, or a new gimmick, or a bunch of strong men, or an invasion of aliens, or the conquest of other planets, or the annihilation of half the world--in short, pretty nearly anything but the facing up to the integral and irredeemable nature of mankind--can bring about utopian situations. It is the old error of the externalization of evil.”

“A writer should say to himself, not, How can I get more money?, but How can I reach more readers (without lowering standards)?”

“Science fiction is no more written for scientists than ghost stories are written for ghosts.”

“Civilisation is the distance that man has placed between himself and his own excreta.”

“The misfortune of a young man who returns to his native land after years away is that he finds his native land foreign; whereas the lands he left behind remain for ever like a mirage in his mind.However, misfortune can itself sow seeds of creativity.---- Afterword to "Hothouse" Brian Aldiss”

“When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults.”

“There are two kinds of writer: those that make you think, and those that make you wonder.”

“It is at night... that the mind is most clear, that we are most able to hold all our life in the palm of our skull.”