Galactic Civilizations Quotes

From an entertainment point of view, the Solar System has been a bust. None of the planets turns out to have any real-estate potential, and most of them are probably even useless for filming Dune sequels.

Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.

Did you know, in the entire universe, we are the only intelligent life forms thought to have a Miss Universe contest?

If our solar system is not unusual, then there are so many planets in the universe that, for example, they outnumber the sum of all sounds and words ever uttered by every human who has ever lived. To declare that Earth must be the only planet with life in the universe would be inexcusably bigheaded of us.

Everybody always talks about the science fiction genre, in particular, which always makes me think about people in spaceships. I can appreciate that, but that's not really where I think my dramatist aspect lies.

I hope that 'House of Suns' functions as an independent novel.

Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?" "Yes." "All like ours?" "I don't know, but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted." "Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?" "A blighted one.

There is little chance that aliens from two societies anywhere in the Galaxy will be culturally close enough to really 'get along.' This is something to ponder as you watch the famous cantina scene in Star Wars. ... Does this make sense, given the overwhelmingly likely situation that galactic civilizations differ in their level of evolutionary development by thousands or millions of years? Would you share drinks with a trilobite, an ourang-outang, or a saber-toothed tiger? Or would you just arrange to have a few specimens stuffed and carted off to the local museum?

I have like 10 actors and 100 aliens in the film [Valerian]. And they come from the four corners of the universe. Some of them are liquid. Some of them are just [so visually] crazy.

Fictional realms are usually terrible places to vacation, as they tend to be full of monsters and conflicts - Narnia and Middle-earth would both be good places to get killed - but I wouldn't mind visiting the worlds of Iain M. Banks's 'Culture.' You'd just have a hard time getting me to leave.

I grew up watching science fiction with my dad. It was kind of our little secret. It was our bonding time as father and daughter.