William Tenn Quotes

Don’t be bitter, young sir. If you want to go on living you have to be alert. And you can’t be alert and bitter at the same time.

Whether or not the science fiction will eventually develop a Shakespeare, I would not dare to predict. But I do claim that it is a literature produced by our times as much as Shakespeare's was by his. And its unfortunate, frequent vulgarities can well be equated with the vulgarities and plebeian absurdities of much Elizabethan writing, both reflecting the primitive vitality of the mass audience that responded to them. It is, of course, in any age, only moribund fiction that is polished to a point of antisepsis, and that will, in losing touch with its audience, “lose the name of action.” This new medium has as yet lost neither.

That’s the big gimmick in this business—dressing it up so they can’t tell it’s the same thing they’ve been seeing since they got their first universal vaccination. If you dress it up enough, the sticks will always go nuts over it. Maybe the critics will make cracks, sure, but who reads the critics?

The human mind is lit by an elemental sense of wonder, a probing, restless curiosity that is our primate heritage and that from its beginnings has sought a knowledge, some knowledge, of the future. To satisfy that need there has come into being a massive and thoroughly modern creation, science fiction, the literature of extrapolative, industrial man.

He knew what the score was—and from here on out, he would be acting on what he knew rather than on what others told him.

The sad truth about political saints of any given past is that nobody but a scholar will take the trouble to read their complete works and try to see them whole.

The delegate returned to tell his countrymen that the Americans, always notorious for their madness, had finally specialized in cretinism.

It had taken a couple of billion years to produce me. In that couple of billion years, I had millions upon millions of ancestors. Slime-like ancestors, jelly-like ancestors, water-breathing ancestors, air-breathing ancestors, ancestors that floated, that swam, that crawled, that ran, that climbed, that finally walked. And all of those ancestors, no matter how different, had one thing in common.
They had survived long enough to have descendants. Other species didn’t and their lines were extinct, bare bones in rock strata. But no matter how scarce food got, no matter what enemies they faced, what unprecedented natural upheavals they had to adjust to, my ancestors somehow managed to pull through, and have offspring. That’s how I happen to be here.

They said you treated them very well, that you showed them as much respect as a thing like you could generate. They also said you cheated them."
"Oh, well, Theseus," Hebster spread his manicured hands. "I'm a businessman.

Scrabbling like mad at their beloved fence, the politicians tried to avoid taking a definite position on either side.

The real world. As good a name for it as any other. Carter was a mystic never and a Freudian only when the occasion suited him. His credo was simple: anything that is, is real.

Science, my forward-looking friend, is a complex of interlocking theories, all derived from observation.

He reached into his soul for an article of fundamental faith, found it. “I can make money,” he quoted to himself. “That’s what I’m good for. That’s what I can always do.”

Wh-who are you? And what do you want?"
"Joseph Burns, a poor but honest newspaperman." He considered for a moment. "Well, poor, anyway.

I've always been a loner. With whatever help I can buy, I take care of myself. I'm not interested in any goal except the extra buck. First and last, I'm a businessman."
"Oh, stop it!" the dark man took a turn up and down the office angrily. "This is a planet-wide emergency. There are times when you can't be a businessman."
"I deny that. I can't conceive of such a time."
Braganza snorted. "You can't be a businessman if you're strapped to a huge pile of blazing faggots. You can't be a businessman if people's minds are so thoroughly controlled that they'll stop eating at their leader's command. You can't be a businessman, my slavering, acquisitive friend, if demand is so well in hand that it ceases to exist."
"That's impossible." Hebster had leaped to his feet. To his amazement, he heard his voice climbing up the scale to hysteria. "There's always demand. Always! The trick is to find what new form it's taken and then fill it!"
"Sorry. I didn't mean to make fun of your religion.