Writers must fortify themselves with pride and egotism as best they can. The process is analogous to using sandbags and loose timbers to protect a house against flood. Writers are vulnerable creatures like anyone else. For what do they have in reality? Not sandbags, not timbers. Just a flimsy reputation and a name.
Brian AldissScience fiction is no more written for scientists than ghost stories are written for ghosts.
Brian AldissI have had wealth, rank and power, but, if these were all I had, how wretched I should be.
Brian AldissIt 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 AldissThe misfortune of a young man who returns to his native land after years away is that he finds his native land foreign; whereas the lands he left behind remain for ever like a mirage in his mind. However, misfortune can itself sow seeds of creativity. ---- Afterword to "Hothouse" Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss