Alfred Bester
13 quotes
Biography
"Faith in faith' he answered himself. 'It isn't necessary to have something to believe in. It's only necessary to believe that somewhere there's something worthy of belief."
"Now, these men weren’t idiots. They were geniuses who paid a high price for their genius because the rest of their thinking was other-world. A genius is someone who travels to truth by an unexpected path. Unfortunately, unexpected paths lead to disaster in everyday life."
"This is my first satellite, and d’you know what it's taught me? There’s just one component in any spacecraft that’s guaranteed to give trouble all the time: scientists!"
"The mind is the reality. You are what you think."
"Powell repressed the wave of exasperation that rose up in him. It was not exasperation with Chooka. It was anger for the relentless force of evolution that insisted on endowing man with increased powers without removing the vestigial vices that prevented him from using them."
"He awoke. He was alive. He wasted no time on prayer or thanks but continued the business of survival."
"We always do what’s natural, only sometimes we shouldn’t do it."
"Yes, no matter how we defend ourselves against the outside we’re always licked by something from the inside. There’s no defense against betrayal, and we all betray ourselves."
"Revenge is for dreams...never for reality."
"The man who gives his own decisions priority over society is a criminal."
"“That’s me,” he said, motioning to the robot. “That’s all of us. We prattle about free will, but we’re nothing but response...mechanical reaction in prescribed grooves.”"
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for survival."
"Most science fiction, quite frankly, is silly nonsense."