“All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is metaphor. What sets it apartfrom older forms of fiction seems to be its use of new metaphors, drawn fromcertain great dominants of our contemporary life -- science, all the sciences,and technology, and the relativistic and the historical outlook, among them.Space travel is one of these metaphors; so is an alternative society, analternative biology; the future is another. The future, in fiction, is ametaphor.A metaphor for what?If I could have said it non-metaphorically, I would not have written all thesewords, this novel; and Genly Ai would never have sat down at my desk and usedup my ink and typewriter ribbon in informing me, and you, rather solemnly,that the truth is a matter of the imagination.”

“Literature is the extant body of written art. All novels belong to it.The value judgement concealed in distinguishing one novel as literature and another as genre vanishes with the distinction.Every readable novel can give true pleasure. Every novel read by choice is read because it gives true pleasure.Literature consists of many genres, including mystery, science fiction, fantasy, naturalism, realism, magical realism, graphic, erotic, experimental, psychological, social, political, historical, bildungsroman, romance, western, army life, young adult, thriller, etc., etc…. and the proliferating cross-species and subgenres such as erotic Regency, noir police procedural, or historical thriller with zombies.Some of these categories are descriptive, some are maintained largely as marketing devices. Some are old, some new, some ephemeral.Genres exist, forms and types and kinds of fiction exist and need to be understood: but no genre is inherently, categorically superior or inferior.(Hypothesis on Literature vs. Genre)”

“War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to “a war against” whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off.”

“The word he used was not “wallowing,” there being no animals on Anarres to make wallows; it was a compound, meaning literally “coating continually and thickly with excrement.” The flexibility and precision of Pravic lent itself to the creation of vivid metaphors quite unforeseen by its inventors.”

“I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth. The only truth I can understand or express is, logically defined, a lie. Psychologically defined, a symbol. Aesthetically defined, a metaphor.”

“Fact is one of our finest fictions.”

“The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrödinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future - indeed Schrödinger most famous thought experiment goes to show that the "future," on the quantum level, cannot be predicted - but to describe reality, the present world.Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge), by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore mor honored in their day than prophets), and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying. Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge), by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore mor honored in their day than prophets), and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.”