Gregory Benford Quotes

A rich bank account did not mean rich ideas; in fact, often the reverse. The bigger your ass, the more you want to cover it.

Manufacturing creates wealth, services distribute it.

Marches don’t stop markets.

Schools praised diversity but were culturally the same. Different skin color, same opinions.

Every age is known by its pleasures, Fielding reads from the library readout. The twentieth introduced two: high speed and hallucinogenic drugs. Both proved dangerous in the long run, which made them even more interesting.

The role of boredom in human history is underrated.

Nothing could be sure it was itself the original. So the only intelligent course lay in enjoying whatever life a being felt—living like a mortal, in the moment.

In its studies and learned colloquy, Faz saw and felt the tales of Men. They seemed curiously convoluted, revolving about Self. What mattered most to those who loved tales was how they concluded. Yet all Men knew how each ended. Their little dreams were rounded with a sleep.
So the point of a tale was not how it ended, but what it meant. The great inspiring epic rage of Man was to find that lesson, buried in a grave.

Thunder impresses, but it’s lightning does the work.

A science fiction writer is—or should be—constrained by what is, or logically might be. That can mean simple fidelity to facts (which, in science, are always more important than theories—though Lord knows the two help shape each other, undermining the convenient, complacent separation of observer and observed). To me it also means heeding the authentic, the actual and concrete. Bad fiction uses the glossy generality; good writing needs the smattering of detail, the unrelenting busy mystery of the real.

I would have to look, try to find a bridge that would make plausible what I knew but could scarcely prove. The standards of science are austere, unforgiving—and who would have it differently? I would have to hedge, to take one step back for each two forward, to compare and suggest and contrast, always sticking close to the data. And despite what I thought I knew now, the data would have to lead, they would have to show the way.

But the answers come when they will, one piece at a time.

He went to Los Angeles to do the work even though he hated the city; it was full of happy homogeneous people without structure or direction. While on the bus to work, it seemed to him Los Angeles went on long after it had already made its point.

Must admit it felt good. First time in years anybody ever admitted I was right.

Trouble comes looking for you if you’re a fool.