Gregory Benford

“Science fiction writers didn't predict the fade-out of NASA's manned space operations, and they weren't prepared with alternative routes to space when that decline became undeniable.”

“Like immense time-binding discussions, genres allow ideas to be developed and traded, and for variations to be spun down through decades.”

“Civilization was a defense against nature’s raw power.”

“Science would lead you to a more interesting life than something else.”

“But a lady forced is never a lady won”

“A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.”

“Fandom grew first through individual correspondence. It was cheap and quick, continent-wide contact for a penny stamp.”

“Experience shows that if you put more ethicists on a problem, you can end up with more problems.”

“Electromagnetic theory and experiment gave us the telephone, radio, TV, computers, and made the internal combustion engine practical - thus, the car and airplane, leading inevitably to the rocket and outer-space exploration.”

“Our moon was born too small to harbor life. It came from the collision of a Mars-sized world into the primordial Earth. From that colossal crunch spun a disk of rocks that condensed into a satellite.”

“When Joseph Wambaugh writes about the LAPD, you listen because you know he knows the scene. Lots of people write cop novels, but they don't have that authenticity.”

“This was the 1940s; there was no television. It was a different age - it was not swamped by media; it was swamped by reality, and storytelling was a very big art where I came from.”

“The talk shows I've done are all radio for exactly this reason: I don't want to wear a rubber mask.”

“As fandom grew more variegated, genzines reflected a broadening of interests, carrying personal columns of humor and reflection, science articles, amateur fiction, stylish gossip, and inevitably, thoughtful pieces on the future of fandom.”

“Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, is the reverse.”

“The common liberal orthodoxy that living close to the land leads to eco-awareness is historically naive, considering that Mesopotamia, northern Africa, and the Mayan civilization were ruined by people who had lived there quite a long while.”

“Star Trek's insight lay in the promise of going to the stars together, with well-defined stereotypes who could supply the emotional frame for the potentially jarring truths of these distant places.”

“The thing that most critics miss about Faulkner is that his famous storytelling voice is, in fact, a standard Southern storytelling voice that is typical of the Gulf Coast - Mississippi, Alabama and so on.”

“It turns out that if you optimize the performance of a car and of an airplane, they are very far away in terms of mechanical features. So you can make a flying car. But they are not very good planes, and they are not very good cars.”

“The world is neither running down nor deterministic, and a strict division of order versus chaos is just wrong.”