Robert J. Sawyer Quotes

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Robert J. Sawyer

Profession : Writer

Birth : April 29, 1960

Science fiction has always used metaphors and disguises, talking about alien civilizations or the future.

Robert J. Sawyer

A lot of people forget that the origin of science fiction in the U.S. was in the post-First World War period when there was a real interest to get people into technical careers.

Robert J. Sawyer

Sci-fi is just as much about social science as technology.

Robert J. Sawyer

When we have machines that are as intelligent - and then twice as intelligent - as we are, there is no reason why that relationship cannot be synergistic rather than antagonistic.

Robert J. Sawyer

Science fiction is about things that plausibly might happen. Grounding my work in the real world helps make that clear.

Robert J. Sawyer

Science fiction has always been a means for political comment. H.G. Wells' 'The War of the Worlds' wasn't about a Martian invasion - it was a critique of British colonialism, and... 'The Time Machine' is really an indictment of the British class system.

Robert J. Sawyer

We absolutely do some of the best science in the world in Canada, across a broad spectrum of disciplines: quantum computing in Waterloo, paleontology in Alberta, neuroscience at the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health in Vancouver, and many more.

Robert J. Sawyer

Science fiction is about extrapolation, looking back through history, spotting a trend, and predicting where it will go.

Robert J. Sawyer

One of the standard story-generating engines for science fiction is to take something we normally think of as metaphoric and treat it as if it were literal.

Robert J. Sawyer

The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is the world's greatest pure physics thinktank, and it's located here in Canada, in Waterloo, Ont.

Robert J. Sawyer

If you like 'The Nature of Things,' or if you like 'Quirks and Quarks' you'll certainly like Lee Smolin's writing, and 'Time Reborn' is his latest nonfiction book, and it's an absolutely compelling read. It's worth the time.

Robert J. Sawyer

I'm a fiction writer, and fiction is telling the lives of unreal people. But the only way you can learn to do that well is by really understanding the lives of real people.

Robert J. Sawyer

One gets a bit picky after having the success of something like 'FlashForward!'

Robert J. Sawyer

I'm a very skeptical guy: my willing suspension of disbelief doesn't go very far when I'm reading other people's SF, and it goes even less far when I'm writing my own.

Robert J. Sawyer

I've long said that if Canada has a role on the world stage, it's principally as a role model, a demonstration that people of all types can get together and live in peace and harmony, which is something we really do most of the time here.

Robert J. Sawyer

I frankly couldn't imagine being a series mystery-fiction writer, churning out book after book about the same viewpoint character.

Robert J. Sawyer

Fiction is all about vicarious experiences and getting into other people's heads in a way that no other art form lets you.

Robert J. Sawyer

A short story is one idea; a novel is a whole soup of them.

Robert J. Sawyer

There's always been a quality to being a science-fiction reader. Usually, you're the only one in your class, or there are only one or two in your whole town. You're always the guy who reads that strange stuff.

Robert J. Sawyer

You have to have confidence in where you're going. Don't live and die by the fans' tweets.

Robert J. Sawyer