Science fiction is not about the freedom of imagination. It's about a free imagination pinched and howling in a vise that other people call real life.
Bruce SterlingWar as Napoleon knew it just not possible any more. However, we're very unlikely to accept or recognize "world peace" even when we get it.
Bruce SterlingIf poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, science fiction writers are its court jesters. We are Wise Fools who can leap, caper, utter prophecies, and scratch ourselves in public. We can play with Big Ideas because the garish motley of our pulp origins make us seem harmless.
Bruce SterlingA dagger is the noble weapon of Brutus. Everyone understands that tyrants fall to daggers. A bomb is a sordid modern device with many complex working parts. Only engineers understand bombs
Bruce Sterling