“Everything in a science-fiction novel should be mentioned at least twice (in at least two different contexts).” — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share Image
Science fiction doesn’t try to predict the future, but rather offers a significant distortion of the present…We sit around and look at… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share Image
The General Public is a statistical fiction created by a few exceptional men to make the loneliness of being exceptional a little… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share Image
However much, as readers, we lose ourselves in a novel or story, fiction itself is an experience on the order of memory… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share Image
Science fiction isn’t just thinking about the world out there. It’s also thinking about how that world might be—a particularly important exercise… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share Image
One of the more depressing things about reading your fiction 25 years later, or 10 years later, is you realize the only… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share Image
Historically, I guess that's how science fiction works: you start by using aliens to think the unthinkable and then, eventually, another… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share Image
Many of the early greats of sf Hugo Gernsback (publisher of Amazing Stories) in particular saw themselves as educators. The… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share Image
Fiction -- at least for me -- requires long, relatively uninterrupted time stretches in which to bring it to fruition. I've never… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share Image
A poet is wounded into speech, and he examines these wounds, meticulously, to discover how to heal them. The bad poet harangues at the… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
'You spin in the sky, the world spins under you, and you step from land to land, while we . . .' She turned… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
“People probably do hear watches go tic-tok. But I’m sure my childhood clock went tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic…Why” — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
“I wanted to get out, Vyme, to keep going and not be trapped, to be free… only I was cruel. I had the chance… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
A number of things in 'Dhalgren' are just meant to function as mysteries. They're mysteries when the book begins, and they're mysteries when the… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
The pulp hero, though he may be a renegade, is a guy who doesn't feel. Anything. Ever. And for the adolescent male - pummeled… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
“they were nice in a useless sort of way, which is, after all, the only way to be truly nice.” — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
“Neurotics, proceed with delusions of grandeur. Napoleon Bonaparte, take the lead. Jesus Christ, bring up the rear. Simulate severe depression. Non-communicative with repressed hostility.” — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
“Do you follow the wrestling? Most people think it's illegal, but you can watch it there. Ruby and Python are on display this evening.” — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
Spending practically every minute of your day on pure survival is an absolutely boring life. — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
When what is is congruent to what is supposed, the reaction is functional and the mental processes competent. When what is and what is… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
Everyone in a position of authority is hysterical, and everyone else is pretending to be asleep. — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
Since I spent eighteen years of my life as a child, and nine years of that life as a pretty sexually active gay child,… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share
