David Brin Quotations

The fundamental premise of sci-fi is not spaceships and lasers - it's that children can learn from the mistakes of their parents.

What point was there in pursuing an ever-elusive popularity?

I hate the whole übermensch, superman temptation that pervades science fiction. I believe no protagonist should be so competent, so awe-inspiring, that a committee of 20 really hard-working, intelligent people couldn't do the same thing.

You don't have conversations with microprocessors. You tell them what to do, then helplessly watch the disaster when they take you literally!

Learn to control ego. Humans hold their dogmas and biases too tightly, and we only think that our opponents are dogmatic! But we all need criticism. Criticism is the only known antidote to error.

I would normally never set out to write a trilogy.

But it is a delightful challenge to try to depict interesting aliens.

But honestly, if you do a rigorous survey of my work, I'll bet you'll find that biology is a theme far more often than physical science.

The measure of (mental) health is flexibility (not comparison to some 'norm'), the freedom to learn from experience ... to be influenced by reasonable arguments ... and the appeal to the emotions ... and especially the freedom to cease when sated. The essence of illness is the freezing of behavior into unalterable and insatiable patterns.

We already live a very long time for mammals, getting three times as many heartbeats as a mouse or elephant. It never seems enough though, does it?