David Brin

“I like to be surprised. Fresh implications and plot twists erupt as a story unfolds. Characters develop backgrounds, adding depth and feeling. Writing feels like exploring.”

“It was a strange trek — the sullen leading the apathetic, followed by the confused, all tailed by the inveterately amused.”

“One of the rules I try to follow is that normal people are going to be involved even in heroic events.”

“Creative people see Prometheus in a mirror, never Pandora.”

“Anything done in secret is more likely to result in terrible errors.”

“We already live a very long time for mammals, getting three times as many heartbeats as a mouse or elephant. It never seems enough though, does it?”

“Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses?”

“But it is a delightful challenge to try to depict interesting aliens.”

“Tragedies such as Nevil Shute's 'On the Beach' and Stanley Kubrick's 'Dr Strangelove' are so powerful because there's an underlying assumption that this did not have to happen. It is empowering.”

“The Enlightenment diamond-shaped society, with a huge, prosperous, socially-mobile, empowered middle class, is by far the most productive and creative system the world has ever seen.”

“I would normally never set out to write a trilogy.”

“I consider Yoda to be just about the most evil character that I've ever seen in the history of literature.”

“Anyone who wants simple, pat stories should buy another author's product. The real universe ain't that way, and neither are my fictive ones.”

“Those who use 'Correlation is not the same as causation' as a magic incantation to dismiss all fact-using professions are fools holding a lit match in one hand and an open gas can in the other, screaming, 'One has nothing to do with the other!'”

“We have earned our peace. It is, by now, more precious than honor, or even pity.”

“Not all SF or fantasy has to inspire new scientists and engineers.”

“Nothing expresses lack of inner confidence like bluster.”

“The health of an enlightened and progressive society is measured by how vibrant is its science fiction, since that is where true self-critique and appraisal and hope lie.”

“Human beings are inherently misled into subjective fantasies, but there's a saving grace. We all have different delusions. Other people don't necessarily share yours, and hence they will help you penetrate yours through the miracle of criticism!”

“Above all, TRIBES is fun, and even kind of sexy... in that every round features an Opportunity for Reproduction, which is the main aim of the game, as it is in most of Nature.”