Theodore Sturgeon Quotes

29 Sourced Quotes

Science fiction, outside of poetry, is the only literary field which has no limits, no parameters whatsoever. You can go not only into the future, but into that wonderful place called "other", which is simply another universe, another planet, another species.

Theodore Sturgeon
Fear is a survival instinct; fear in its way is a comfort for it means that somewhere hope is alive.

Theodore Sturgeon
The novels were all right for a while until she found out that most of them were like the movies - all about the pretty ones who really own the world.

Theodore Sturgeon
Even to loneliness there is an end, for those who are lonely enough, long enough.

Theodore Sturgeon
Even if this is the end of humankind, we dare not take away the chances some other life-form might have to succeed where we failed. If we retaliate, there will not be a dog, a deer, an ape, a bird or fish or lizard to carry the evolutionary torch. In the name of justice, if we must condemn and destroy ourselves, let us not condemn all life along with us! We are heavy enough with sins. If we must destroy, let us stop with destroying ourselves!

Theodore Sturgeon
Just think about it," he said softly. "You can do practically anything. You can have practically everything. And none of it will keep you from being alone." "Shut up shut up...Everybody's alone." He nodded. "But some people learn how to live with it.

Theodore Sturgeon
He slept like an animal, well and lightly, faced in the opposite direction from that of a man; for a man going to sleep is about to escape into it while animals are prepared to escape out of it.

Theodore Sturgeon
It's the Simple things that are really effective. Try to remember that.

Theodore Sturgeon
It means "Ask the next question." Ask the next question, and the one that follows that, and the one that follows that. It's the symbol of everything humanity has ever created, and is the reason it has been created. This guy is sitting in a cave and he says, "Why can't man fly?" Well, that's the question. The answer may not help him, but the question now has been asked.
The next question is what? How? And so all through the ages, people have been trying to find out the answer to that question. We've found the answer, and we do fly. This is true of every accomplishment, whether it's technology or literature, poetry, political systems or anything else. That is it. Ask the next question. And the one after that.
His explanation of the meaning of a small symbol he used when writing his signature

Theodore Sturgeon
The idiot heard the sounds, but they had no meaning for him. He lived inside somewhere, apart, and the little link between word and significance hung broken.

Theodore Sturgeon
Do you know what morals are? Morals are an obedience to rules that people laid down to help you live among them.

Theodore Sturgeon
Love's a different sort of thing, hot enough to make you flow into something, interflow, cool and anneal and be a weld stronger than what you started with.

Theodore Sturgeon
No man can rob successfully over a period of years without pleasing the people he robs.

Theodore Sturgeon
Why must we love where the lightning strikes, and not where we choose?

Theodore Sturgeon
Logic and truth are two very different things, but they often look the same to the mind that's performing the logic.

Theodore Sturgeon
There is in certain living souls a quality of loneliness unspeakable, so great it must be shared as company is shared by lesser beings. Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this that in immensity there is one lonelier than you.

Theodore Sturgeon
So it was that Lone came to know himself; and like the handful of people who have done so before him he found, at this pinnacle, the rugged foot of a mountain.

Theodore Sturgeon
You can learn more music theory in a year on guitar than you can in three on a piano, and music is one of the most human of human things.

Theodore Sturgeon
The most human thing about anyone is a thing he learns and … and earns. It's a thing he can't have when he's very young; if he gets it at all, he gets it after a long search and a deep conviction. After that it's truly part of him as long as he lives.

Theodore Sturgeon
Morals: They're nothing but a coded survival instinct!

Theodore Sturgeon
There's this about a farm: when the market's good there's money, and when it's bad there's food.

Theodore Sturgeon
An ethic isn't a fact you can look up. It's a way of thinking.

Theodore Sturgeon
Reality isn't the most pleasant of atmospheres, Lieutenant. But we like to think we're engineered for it. It's a pretty fine piece of engineering, the kind an engineer can respect. Drag in an obsession and reality can't tolerate it. Something has to give; if reality goes, your fine piece of engineering is left with nothing to operate on. So it operates badly. So kick the obsession out; start functioning the way you were designed to function.

Theodore Sturgeon
If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?

Theodore Sturgeon
That's fairly common. We don't believe anything we don't want to believe.

Theodore Sturgeon
Ask Baby can you be truly part of someone you love." "He says only if you love yourself.

Theodore Sturgeon
A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content.

Theodore Sturgeon
Why on earth do you carry a mirror around with you? It's purely a defensive device. We seldom quarrel, and this is one of the reasons. Can you imagine yourself getting all worked up and contorted and illogical and then coming face to face with yourself, looking at yourself exactly as you look to everyone else?

Theodore Sturgeon
Here, too, was the guide, the beacon, for such times as humanity might be in danger; here was the Guardian of Whom all humans knew — not an exterior force, nor an awesome Watcher in the sky, but a laughing thing with a human heart and a reverence for its human origins, smelling of sweat and new-turned earth rather than suffused with the pale odor of sanctity.

Theodore Sturgeon