Damon Knight Quotes

11 Sourced Quotes

Eagles had made a realist of him. He believed in facts, and in altering your viewpoint to fit them, no matter what they were. That was the way you survived and stayed sane; it was hard, it meant sacrifices—he had already lost many things that he valued deeply—but it was the only way.

Damon Knight
We live on a minute island of known things. Our undiminished wonder at the mystery which surrounds us is what makes us human. In science fiction we can approach that mystery, not in small, everyday symbols, but in bigger ones of space and time.

Damon Knight
A society that put more emphasis on birth than ability was likely to breed ability out of its ruling class.

Damon Knight
Don't lose your temper, said Ruell evenly. It's your worst fault, except for ignorance.

Damon Knight
Voluntary birth control methods only work on the people who choose to use 'em. A population check that doesn't work on everybody doesn't work at all, because it simply breeds out the ones who use it. The only population check that really works is one that affects everybody, like a limit of space or food.

Damon Knight
We humanitarians, as our name suggests, believe that man has an ethical duty to man. We believe that the value of any system is measured by the consideration given to all human beings, not just to a favored class: and by that standard, our present system is a miserable failure.

Damon Knight
There are more riddles in a stone than in a philosopher's head

Damon Knight
Driving down the wrong road and knowing it, The fork years behind, how many have thought To pull up on the shoulder and leave the car Empty, strike out across the fields; and how many Are still mazed among dock and thistle, Seeking the road they should have taken?

Damon Knight
He was going to die. His mind flinched back in horror from that, but it was still there, grinning, implacable. His body would rot under the ground, while delicious things were still happening in the sunlight.

Damon Knight
No progress, either moral or material, can be made in a world which is frozen, like ours, into a rigid mold of suppression of liberties.

Damon Knight
Science fiction … means what we point to when we say it.

Damon Knight