Gregory Benford
160 quotes
Biography
"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."
"While politicians wrangled on the front pages of our newspapers, quiet revolutions looked within. Only occasionally did the news I thought most notable make the front page. All of it hinged on the steady building of connections which marks modern science."
"Science is about continuity of ideas, a web of connections."
"I agree with the Emperor. Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
"Ideas about existence pale, beside the fact of existence."
"—Y’know, fact that nobody understands you doesn’t mean you’re some kinda genius."
"I started out with nothing and still have most of it left."
"When you have a Ph. D., you call them hypotheses, not guesses."
"Wars don’t determine who’s right, only who’s left."
"She could not understand why people feared new ideas. She was frightened by the old ones."
"Talkers never acted when they could talk."
"“You know, my dear, you’re wrong that suffering ennobles people.” She’d stopped to massage her hip, wincing. “It simply makes one cross.”"
"As Kurt Vonnegut pointed out in his first novel, Player Piano, some people love problem-solving and tinkering—and that is the final, irreducible driver of human history. Wars and faiths and leaders come and go, but the problem-solvers’ slow, steady work is the fulcrum upon which history turns."
"Must admit it felt good. First time in years anybody ever admitted I was right."
"He went to Los Angeles to do the work even though he hated the city; it was full of happy homogeneous people without structure or direction. While on the bus to work, it seemed to him Los Angeles went on long after it had already made its point."
"But the answers come when they will, one piece at a time."
"I would have to look, try to find a bridge that would make plausible what I knew but could scarcely prove. The standards of science are austere, unforgiving—and who would have it differently? I would have to hedge, to take one step back for each two forward, to compare and suggest and contrast, always sticking close to the data. And despite what I thought I knew now, the data would have to lead, they would have to show the way."
"A science fiction writer is—or should be—constrained by what is, or logically might be. That can mean simple fidelity to facts (which, in science, are always more important than theories—though Lord knows the two help shape each other, undermining the convenient, complacent separation of observer and observed). To me it also means heeding the authentic, the actual and concrete. Bad fiction uses the glossy generality; good writing needs the smattering of detail, the unrelenting busy mystery of the real."
"Thunder impresses, but it’s lightning does the work."
"Nothing could be sure it was itself the original. So the only intelligent course lay in enjoying whatever life a being felt—living like a mortal, in the moment."
"The role of boredom in human history is underrated."
"Every age is known by its pleasures, Fielding reads from the library readout. The twentieth introduced two: high speed and hallucinogenic drugs. Both proved dangerous in the long run, which made them even more interesting."
"Schools praised diversity but were culturally the same. Different skin color, same opinions."
"Marches don’t stop markets."
"Manufacturing creates wealth, services distribute it."