Alfred Bester Quotations

We always do what's natural, only sometimes we shouldn't do it.

Intellect is the ability to avoid belaboring the obvious.

Damn you!" Dagenham raged, "Don't you realize that you can't trust people? They don't know enough for their own good." "Then let them learn or die. We're all in this together. Let's live or die together.

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.

The man who gives his own decisions priority over society is a criminal.

It's obvious we can't all be a Gully Foyle, but most of us energize at such a low level, so far short of our real capabilities, we could all be more, do more.

Most science fiction, quite frankly, is silly nonsense.

The whole point of extravagance is to act like a fool and feel like a fool, but enjoy it.

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.

Tenser, said the Tensor. Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun.

I challenge you, me. Die or live and be great.

If you can have everything at fifty that you wanted when you were fifteen, you're happy.

This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks... but nobody loved it.

I've handed life and death back to the people who do the living and the dying.

Eight, sir; seven, sir; Six, sir; five, sir; Four, sir; Three, sir; Two, sir; one! Tenser, said the Tensor. Tenser, said the Tensor. Tension, apprehension, And dissension have begun.

If a man's got talent and guts to buck society, he's obviously above average. You want to hold on to him. You straighten him out and turn him into a plus value. Why throw him away? Do that enough and all you've got left are the sheep.

This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living and hard dying... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks... but nobody loved it.

You pigs, you. You rut like pigs, is all. You got the most in you, and you use the least. You hear me, you? Got a million in you and spend pennies. Got a genius in you and think crazies. Got a heart in you and feel empties. All a you. Every you...

The test of intellect is the refusal to belabor the obvious.

I'm not much interested in extrapolating science and technology; I merely use extrapolation as a means of putting people into new quandaries which produce colorful pressures and conflicts.

Life is a freak. That’s its hope and glory.

Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts.

I'm a great believer in people and their untapped potential.

The damnable frustration of revenge. Revenge is for dreams...never for reality.

The appeal of science fiction has always been its iconoclasm . . . But in order to be an iconoclast, an author must be more than merely aware of the idol he wishes to destroy. He must be intimate with it and understand it in all its aspects. This means that he must have devoted serious thought to it, and have beliefs of his own which will stand up in the place of the broken idol. In other words, any child can complain, but it takes an adult to clash with accepted beliefs . . . an adult with ideas.

Millions for nonsense, but not one cent for entropy.

Gully Foyle is my name And Terra is my nation Deep space is my dwelling place The stars my destination

There's got to be more to life than just living," Foyle said to the robot. Then find it for yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts." Why can't we all move forward together?" Because you're all different. You're not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow." Who leads?" The men who must...driven men, compelled men." Freak men." You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory.

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

The mind is the reality. You are what you think.

It's been suggested that most women fail to write significantly because the female mind is viscerotonic, and occupied almost exclusively with the moment-to-moment reality of emotions. If this is true, literature's loss is science fiction's gain, for Out of Bounds, Judith Merril's collection of short stories, is a warm and colorful rendering of the minutiae of the future.

Be grateful that you only see the outward man. Be grateful that you never see the passions, the hatreds, the jealousies, the malice, the sicknesses... Be grateful you rarely see the frightening truth in people.

One of the things that everybody knows about space travel but never mentions is its aphrodisiac quality.