David Gerrold Quotations

What's interesting about the shift from an industrial age to a technological age is that we keep inventing new media: movies, records, radio, television, the Internet, and now ebooks - and one of the things that's most interesting about the invention of a new medium is watching it reinvent itself as it penetrates the culture.

Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.

When we look up at the night sky and wonder, 'Is there anyone else out there?' we're also asking who we are in relation to them.

'Who are we?' And to me that's the essential question that's always been in science fiction. A lot of science fiction stories are - at their very best - evocations of that question. When we look up at the night sky and wonder, 'Is there anyone else out there?' we're also asking who we are we in relation to them.

In the 20th century, we had a century where at the beginning of the century, most of the world was agricultural and industry was very primitive. At the end of that century, we had men in orbit, we had been to the moon, we had people with cell phones and colour televisions and the Internet and amazing medical technology of all kinds.

Of course life is bizarre, the more bizarre it gets, the more interesting it is. The only way to approach it is to make yourself some popcorn and enjoy the show.

'Star Trek' is the McDonald's of science fiction; it's fast food storytelling. Every problem is like every other problem. They all get solved in an hour. Nobody ever gets hurt, and nobody needs to care. You give up an hour of your time, and you don't really have to get involved. It's all plastic.

When the Internet came along, at first it was just a medium for moving text around - books first, then pictures, finally video. Each time the bandwidth expanded, so did the capabilities of the medium, and each time it happened, the Internet cannibalized preexisting formats. And each time, those formats had to adapt. Or die.

In the entire history of the human species, every tool we've invented has been to expand muscle power. All except one. The integrated circuit, the computer. That lets us use our brain power.

In the past, a great library was the result of librarians functioning as guardians of culture, tending and caring, selecting and recommending works that maintained and nurtured a cultural heritage.

Study what you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life. It'll be one great adventure.

The problem with the gene pool is that there's no lifeguard.

Understanding the laws of nature does not mean that we are immune to their operations.

If you were a kid in 1955, you would pick up a copy of 'Popular Science' and it would say, 'This is the kind of car you're going to be driving in five years or in 20 years you'll be able to take a jet plane from New York to London in four hours,' or something like that. We actually got used to the idea that the future's going to be different.

There's two tiers of science fiction: the McDonalds sci-fi like Star Trek, where they have an adventure and solve it before the last commercial, and there are books that once you've read, you never look at the world the same way again.

What I wish is that people would look beyond the tribbles and see I've written some other books that I really would like people to notice. There's 'The Man Who Folded Himself,' there's 'The Martian Child,' which is about my son and the adoption. There's 'The War Against The Chtorr,' which is my magnum opus, my great epic story.

I have memories - but only a fool stores his past in the future.

I think we built the right future. If it's a choice between the flying car or the Internet, tablets and smartphones, I'll take what we've got.

The first science fiction show on television was 'Tales Of Tomorrow' using scripts from the radio show 'X-1' which used stories from 'Galaxy Magazine' as its source material.

When I was a kid, my favorite movies were the George Pal version of 'War Of The Worlds,' 'Them,' and 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers.' Those movies were scary! They haunted my nightmares for years, so when I started writing, I wanted to write a story that was just as big and just as scary.

I had always been fascinated by the whole idea that Australia was this different ecology and that when rabbits and prickly pears and other things from Europe were introduced into Australia, they ran amok.

My approach to 'Star Trek' was, 'I know science fiction, and I know screen writing.' That was very arrogant of me, but you really need to be a little bit arrogant to think that what you have to say is good enough to justify the expense of hundreds of thousands - now millions of dollars - to make an episode of the TV show.

I'm frustrated with Hollywood and television and the movies because they see science fiction as an excuse for eye candy, for lots of great special effects.

'The Next Generation' was a lot of fun for a while, and then it wasn't a lot of fun. The reason it wasn't a lot of fun was that this one was going to be a guaranteed hit. The original 'Star Trek' was never a guaranteed hit.

Doesn't anybody ever want to talk about anything else besides 'Star Trek?' There were 79 episodes of the series; there were 55 different writers. I was only one of them.

Just as movies, radio, and television evolved into new forms over time, the ebook will also become something more than just a way to read books. It will become its own specific and unique way of creating and sharing experience.

Science fiction is a unique literature. Science fiction is the first literature that says, 'Tomorrow is going to be different than yesterday, it's going to be a lot different.'

When television began, it modeled itself after radio. Many early television programs were radio programs first. 'My Favorite Wife,' 'The Jack Benny Show,' 'Burns and Allen,' 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents.'

You have a billion people who know 'Tribbles' and only half a million who know my novel 'The Man Who Folded Himself,' which is one of my better-known books.

If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing for money

I won't even try to predict the specifics, but I think the ebook - as a medium - could be a game-changer.

To say that a writer's hold on reality is tenuous is an understatement-it's like saying the Titanic had a rough crossing. Writer's build their own realities, move into them and occasionally send letters home. The only difference between a writer and a crazy person is that a writer gets paid for it.

Who are we?' And to me that's the essential question that's always been in science fiction. A lot of science fiction stories are - at their very best - evocations of that question. When we look up at the night sky and wonder, 'Is there anyone else out there?' we're also asking who we are we in relation to them.

The single most important lesson of effective communication is this: Focus on clarity. Concentrate on precisions. Don’t worry about constructing beautiful sentences. Beauty comes from meaning, not language. Accuracy is the most effective style of all.

The most useless job in the world is that of the critic. That is a prejudiced statement. I admit it. I'm prejudiced. I hate critics. ... And now, as the saying goes (yesterday, I couldn't even spell critik), and now I are one.

It's almost always dangerous to be right too soon.

Star Trek' is the McDonald's of science fiction; it's fast food storytelling. Every problem is like every other problem. They all get solved in an hour. Nobody ever gets hurt, and nobody needs to care. You give up an hour of your time, and you don't really have to get involved. It's all plastic.

If you're passing the buck, don't ask for change.

Imagine yourself in the scene. See what there is to be seen. Listen to the sounds. Touch the world. Smell the air. Taste it. Use all of your senses. Then evoke those experiences for the reader. If you give the audience the flavor, they'll flesh out the moment in their own imaginations.

Theres two tiers of science fiction: the McDonalds sci-fi like Star Trek, where they have an adventure and solve it before the last commercial, and there are books that once youve read, you never look at the world the same way again.

Notice how every science fiction movie or television show starts with a shot of the location where the story is about to occur. Movies that take place in outer space always start with a shot of stars and a starship. Movies that take place on another world always start with a shot of that planet. This is to let you know where you are. Novels and stories start the same way. You have to give the reader a sense of where he is and what's happening as quickly as possible. You don't want to start the story by confusing the reader.

The computer has evolved into a partner, a tool, and an environment--not just in science fiction, but in the public consciousness as well. Computers are no longer malevolent iron brains that manufacture tyrannical and oppressive answers; they are not a way to think, they are a place from which to think. The computer is an environment in which answers can be sought, created, manipulated and developed.

The human race never solves any of its problems, it only outlives them.

I've always felt that anyone who wants to talk about my private life is only demonstrating the paucity of his/her imagination when there are so many more important and exciting things to discuss.

Life has a peculiar habit -- once established, it stays. Sometimes it even thrives.

Life is full of little surprises. Time travel is full of big ones.

You cannot avoid mortality. But you can choose your way of meeting it. And that is the most that any man can hope for.

Tomorrow is going to be different than yesterday, it's going to be a lot different.

Morality—like velocity—is relative. The determination of it depends on what the objects around you are doing. All one can do is measure one's position in relation to them; never can one measure one's velocity or morality in terms of absolutes.

The secret of the universe is this: The universe doesn't care. That part of the job is yours.

I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.

Something went klunk. Like a nickel dropping in a soda machine. One of those small insights that explains everything. This was puberty for these boys. Adolescence. The first date, the first kiss, the first chance to hold hands with someone special. Delayed, postponed, a decade's worth of longing--while everybody around you celebrates life, you pretend, suppress, inhibit, deprive yourself of you own joy--but finally ultimately, eventually, you find a place where you can have a taste of everything denied.

A work of art is an act of love. Critics are crab lice.

The fifties are a peaceful time, a quiet sleeping time between two noisy bursts of years, a blue and white time filled with sweet yellow days, music and bright smelling memories.

True genius can be identified by the fact that its expression changes the world into something it has never been before.

Contentment is the continuing act of accepting the process of your own life.

The avalanche of time sweeps everything before it. Every individual instant hurtles into oblivion, drowning out the obliteration of the instant immediately preceding it, and then it too disappears under the onslaught of the next and the next and the next. When the avalanche has shuddered past for a long enough time, the perception of the past evolves. Distant events grow beyond mere history and take on the weight of legend.

I have a very simple philosophy of life: Kindness. Ferocious, unrelenting, ruthless, committed, passionate, kindness. Life is sacred everywhere. We all have better things to do than beat each other up. Arguing for the exception is to invest it with energy, it's to negotiate the loophole. The commitment to kindness must be total.

I think I exist, therefore I exist. I think.

Study what you love, and youll never have to work a day in your life. Itll be one great adventure.

You will find it easiest to ride the avalanche in the direction it already travels.

We have this sacred cow in our society that what the majority of people want is right—but is it? Our populace can't really be informed, not the majority of them—most people vote the way they have been manipulated and by the way they have responded to that manipulation—they are working out their own patterns of wishful thinking on the social environment in which they live.

Incompetency fed on itself.

Christianity has held back any further advances in human consciousness for the past thousand years. And for the past century it's been in direct conflict with its illegitimate offspring, Communism (again with a capital C). Both ask the individual to sacrifice his self-interest to the higher goals of the organization. (Which is okay by me as long as it's voluntary; but as soon as either becomes too big—and takes on that damned capital C—they stop asking for cooperation and start demanding it.) Any higher states of human enlightenment have been sacrificed between these two monoliths.

Only people who haven't lived through a war advocate it so eagerly.

You can tell a lot about a civilization by the quality of the people found in its jails.

The jingling of a fat purse always commands the world.

Most people say they want justice, but they don't really want justice. They want revenge. They want to see the pain spread around equally.

Death comes black and hard, rushing down on me from the future, with no possible chance of escape.

Adolescence is that time in your life when you discover your ability to be depressed.