Brian Aldiss: Most SF is about madness, or what is currently ruled to...

Whatever creativity is, it is in part a solution to a problem.

Brian Aldiss

creativity success ideas

There are two kinds of writer: those that make you think, and those that make you wonder.

Brian Aldiss

writing two thinking

Relax, enjoy yourself. Have another drink. It's patriotic to overconsume.

Brian Aldiss

drink patriotic relax

When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them, they show us the state of our decay.

Brian Aldiss

fear love children

Science fiction is the search for a definition of mankind and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post Gothic mode.

Brian Aldiss

confused definitions fiction

The fatal error of much science fiction has been to subscribe to an optimism based on the idea that revolution, or a new gimmick, or a bunch of strong men, or an invasion of aliens, or the conquest of other planets, or the annihilation of half the world--in short, pretty nearly anything but the facing up to the integral and irredeemable nature of mankind--can bring about utopian situations. It is the old error of the externalization of evil.

Brian Aldiss

strong men ideas

Its at night, when perhaps we should be dreaming, that the mind is most clear, that we are most able to hold all our life in the palm of our skull. I dont know if anyone has ever pointed out that great attraction of insomnia before, but it is so; the night seems to release a little more of our vast backward inheritance of instincts and feelings; as with the dawn, a little honey is allowed to ooze between the lips of the sandwich, a little of the stuff of dreams to drip into the waking mind.

Brian Aldiss

dream sleep love

I can't help believing that these things that come from the subconscious mind have a sort of truth to them. It may not be a scientific truth, but it's psychological truth.

Brian Aldiss

mind may believe

Science fiction is no more written for scientists than ghost stories are written for ghosts.

Brian Aldiss

ghost-stories science fiction

Science fiction is for real, space opera is for fun.

Brian Aldiss

space real fun

Why had I become a writer in the first place? Because I wasn't fit for society; I didn't fit into the system.

Brian Aldiss

fit society firsts

When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults.

Brian Aldiss

unhappy-childhood life kids

Civilization is the distance man has placed between himself and his excreta.

Brian Aldiss

distance men civilization

Most of my poetry lies beyond the SF field, yet here I am corralled into 'SF poetry' as part of this poetry weekend. Of course, some might say, 'you've made your own bed - now you must lie in it!' But, while fully accepting that dictum, I'm not yet quite prepared to lie down.

Brian Aldiss

weekend here-i-am lying

I was hardly fit for human society. Thus destiny shaped me to be a science fiction writer.

Brian Aldiss

fit destiny fiction

It is at night... that the mind is most clear, that we are most able to hold all our life in the palm of our skull.

Brian Aldiss

skulls sleep night

Let's have a toast - to the future generation of consumers, however many heads or assholes they have!

Brian Aldiss

future-generation consumers generations

What were several fewer species of animals compared with a hundred-mile advance and another medal on another general?

Brian Aldiss

miles hundred animal

That is why we dread children, even if we love them. They show us the state of our decay.

Brian Aldiss

unhappy-childhood decay children

Keep violence in the mind Where it belongs (Barefoot in the Head)

Brian Aldiss

barefoot violence mind

Most SF is about madness, or what is currently ruled to be madness; this is part of its attraction - it's always playing with how much the human mind can encompass.