12 Quotes & Sayings By Frederik Pohl

Frederik Pohl was born in Germany in 1931. He moved to the United States at age 17, and began his career as a newspaper reporter, then became a science fiction writer. He is best known for his novel The Space Merchants, but he has written more than sixty short stories which have appeared in magazines since the 1950s. He won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1967, and the Nebula Award for "Best Novella" in 1966 Read more

His major work of fiction is Gateway, which was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1973.

A good science fiction story should be able to predict...
1
A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam. Frederik Pohl
2
I perceived quite early that I was a reader, and most of the people I came into contact with were not. It made a barrier. What they wanted to talk about were things they had eaten, touched, or done. What I wanted to talk about was what I had read. Frederik Pohl
3
I was worried about sex, " he went on. "But you know what, Sulie? It's like being told I can't have any caviar for the next couple years. I don't even like caviar. And when you come right down to it, I don't want sex right now. I supposed you punched that into the computer? 'Cut down sex drive, increase euphoria'? Anyway, it finally penetrated my little brain that I was just making trouble for myself, worrying about whether I could get along without something I really didn't want. It's a reflection of what I think other people think I should want. Frederik Pohl
4
I let myself flop - so gently, so slowly - into my one real chair and tried to make myself understand that I was on the doorstep of the universe. Frederik Pohl
5
They were two lovely choices. One of them meant giving up every chance of a decent life forever...and the other one scared me out of my mind. Frederik Pohl
6
For twenty years and more the whole planet had been bombed, raped, ravaged, and gouged by people whose fury had so exceeded their judgment that the only thing they could think of to do to express their discontent was to kill somebody. Frederik Pohl
7
The bump of ego on his skull had swollen large, so he saw the whole world in terms of what it could give him. Frederik Pohl
8
The robots came bearing a gift and the name of it was "Plenty."Plenty is a habit-forming drug. You do not cut the dosage down. You kick it if you can; you stop the dose entirely. But the convulsions that follow may wreck the body entirely. Frederik Pohl
9
The FDA just ordered them off the market. The glaze is supposed to be poison–provided you drink at least forty cups of tea out of one of them every day of your life for twenty years. Frederik Pohl
10
People ask me how I do research for my science fiction. The answer is, I never do any research. Frederik Pohl
11
If you don't care about science enough to be interested in it on its own, you shouldn't try to write hard science fiction. You can write like Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison as much as you want. Frederik Pohl