Liu Cixin Quotes

This is the difference between an ordinary scribe and a literary writer. The highest level of literary creation is when the characters in a novel possess life in the mind of the writer. The writer is unable to control them, and might not even be able to predict the next action they will take. We can only follow them in wonder to observe and record the minute details of their lives like a voyeur.

The truth is that sci-fi and fantasy have many more similarities than differences. They have the same goal: both strive to create ethereal, free worlds of the imagination from which readers can derive the shocks and delights of beauty. (Personally, I’ve never thought it’s sci-fi’s job to represent reality or human nature.) The only difference between the two is the source of their imaginings.

Even Coca-Cola probably tasted medicinal the first time you tried it. Anything addictive is like that.

Everything was deathly quiet. The eyes were the most terrifying: the eyes of dinosaurus; the eyes of trilobites and ants; the eyes of birds and butterflies; the eyes of bacteria... The humans alone possessed one hundred billion pairs of eyes, equal to the number of stars in the Milky Way, Among them were the eyes of ordinary men and women, and the eyes of Da Vinci, Shakespeare, and Einstein.

Of all the noble, vaunted heroes we hear about, at least half were contemptible liars and schemers who used their influence to claim achievements and write the histories, and managed to succeed. Of those who really did give everything for truth and justice, two-thirds choked to death horribly and quietly in the dust of history, forgotten by everyone, and the remaining one-third had their reputations smeared into eternal infamy, just like Song Cheng. Only a tiny percentage were remembered as they were by history, less than the exposed corner of the iceberg.

I don’t have much to say except a warning. Life reached an evolutionary milestone when it climbed onto land from the ocean, but those first fish that climbed onto land ceased to be fish. Similarly, when humans truly enter space and are freed from the Earth, they cease to be human. So, to all of you I say this: When you think about heading into outer space without looking back, please reconsider. The cost you must pay is far greater than you could imagine. *

One night, Ye was working the night shift. This was the loneliest time. In the deep silence of midnight, the universe revealed itself to its listeners as a vast desolation. What Ye disliked most was seeing the waves that slowly crawled across the display, a visual record of the meaningless noise Red Coast picked up from space. Ye felt this interminable wave was an abstract view of the universe: one end connected to the endless past, the other to the endless future, and in the middle only the ups and downs of random chance — without life, without pattern, the peaks and valleys at different heights like uneven grains of sand, the whole curve like a one-dimensional desert made of all the grains of sand lined up in a row, lonely, desolate, so long that it was intolerable. You could follow it and go forward or backward as long as you liked, but you’d never find the end.

We have no literature, no art, no pursuit of beauty and enjoyment. We cannot even speak of love.… Princeps, is there meaning to such a life?

When it was born, the universe was smaller than an atom, and everything within it was intermixed as a single whole; the natural connection between the universe’s small parts and its great entirety was thus determined. Though the universe has expanded to whatever its current size, this connection still exists, and if we can’t see it now, that doesn’t mean we won’t be able to in the future.

Unlike other human religions, they worshipped something that truly existed. Also unlike other human religions, it was the Lord who was in crisis, and the duty of salvation fell on the shoulders of the believer.

You don’t need to pity them. Really, let me tell you: don’t. The reality of the universe is not something to envy.” “Why?” Yifan lifted a hand and pointed at the stars of the galaxy. Then he let the 3G force pull his arm back to this chest. “Darkness. Only darkness.” “You mean the dark forest state?” Guan Yifan shook his head, a gesture that appeared to be a struggle in hypergravity. “For us, the dark forest state is all-important, but it’s just a detail of the cosmos. If you think of the cosmos as a great battlefield, dark forest strikes are nothing more than snipers shooting at the careless — messengers, mess men, etc. In the grand scheme of the battle, they are nothing. You have not seen what a true interstellar war is like.” “Have you?” “We’ve caught a few glimpses. But most things we know are just guesses.… Do you really want to know? The more you possess of this kind of knowledge, the less light remains in your heart.” “My heart is already completely dark. I want to know.” And so, more than six centuries after Luo Ji had fallen through ice into that lake, another dark veil hiding the truth about the universe was lifted before the gaze of one of the only survivors of Earth civilization. Yifan asked, “Why don’t you tell me what the most powerful weapon for a civilization possessing almost infinite technological prowess is? Don’t think of this as a technical question. Think philosophy.” Cheng Xin pondered for a while and then struggled to shake her head. “I don’t know.” “Your experiences should give you a hint.” What had she experienced? She had seen how a cruel attacker could lower the dimensions of space by one and destroy a solar system. What are dimensions? “The universal laws of physics,” Cheng Xin said. “That’s right. The universal laws of physics are the most terrifying weapons, and also the most effective defenses. Whether it’s by the Milky Way or the Andromeda Galaxy, at the scale of the local galactic group or the Virgo Supercluster, those warring civil

Luckily, the forest was so dense that the two escaped without injury, though one of the men peed in his pants.

I am Ding Yi.” He opened up two folding chairs and motioned for us to sit down, then returned to his chair. He said, “Before you tell me why you’ve come, let me discuss with you a dream I’ve just had.… No, you’ve got to listen. It was a wonderful dream, which you interrupted. In the dream I was sitting here, a knife in my hand, around so long, like for cutting watermelon. Next to me was this tea table. But there wasn’t an ashtray or anything on it. Just two round objects, yea big. Circular, spherical. What do you think they were?” “Watermelon?” “No, no. One was a proton, the other a neutron. A watermelon-sized proton and neutron. I cut the proton open first. Its charge flowed out onto the table, all sticky, with a fresh fragrance. After I cut the proton in half, the quarks inside tumbled out, tinkling. They were about the size of walnuts, in all sorts of colors. They rolled about on the table, and some of them fell onto the floor. I picked up a white one. It was very hard, but with effort, I was able to bite into it. It tasted like a manaizi grape.… And right then, you woke me up.

Guardó silencio unos instantes. Luego se volvió y se marchó, incapaz de sentir pena. Le pasaba lo mismo que a un medidor Geiger: expuesto a tal cantidad de radioactividad, su lectura siempre tendía a cero.

Nostalgia ages people, but science fiction is a literature of youth. Its spirit is the youthful yearning for new worlds, and new ways of living. Mainstream literature is like Chinese baijiu, tasting better as it ages; science fiction, on the other hand, is like tap beer—you’ve got to drink it quick. Read today, even the sci-fi classics seem feeble, not revelatory. The nature of science fiction is to shine brightest in the present, then to be quickly forgotten. But science fiction shouldn’t be afraid of obsolescence. As a literature of innovation, it uses a constant stream of inventions and shocks to hold back obsolescence, like an everlasting fire. Just as ash falls, the flame springs back to life, emitting dazzling light. To accomplish this, it must hold on to its usefulness.