Stanley Schmidt Quotes

• Resist the temptation to try to use dazzling style to conceal weakness of substance.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Writing, Temptation, Style

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• Don't mistake a good setup for a satisfying conclusion - many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to begin.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Real, Mistake, Writing

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• It's most presumptuous to believe we already know all the answers and will never get any more big surprises.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Believe, Answers, Surprise

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• It's easy to imagine ways the future can be ugly and depressing. It's harder, but more worthwhile, to imagine plausible ways we can make it better.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Depressing, Way, Ugly

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• Of course, the way writers think about those things is almost certain to be affected by their own cultural background, and it would be hard to deny that, for whatever reasons, a lot of SF writers come from Anglo or European backgrounds.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Thinking, Would Be, Way

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• As for sticking strictly to presently known science, I will simply point out that we have already experienced at least two major revolutions in science in this century alone.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Science, Two, Revolution

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• Through our entire history we have become accustomed to pushing [animals] around in ways dictated by our own wants and needs without much regard for theirs.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Animal, Needs, Want

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• And, of course, some SF is set close enough to here and now that Anglo and European do apply. Since many of the writers come from those backgrounds, so does much of the fiction.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Doe, Fiction, Bedtime

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• Blaming society makes it awfully easy for a person of weak character to shrug off his own responsibility for his actions.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Character, Responsibility, Action

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• What SF can do better than anything else is show us the range of our possible futures, and what we can do to realize the good ones and avoid the nasty ones.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Nasty, Realizing, Range

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• Ideally, I'd like every issue to include a diverse group of stories that meet the qualifications sketched above, but covering a wide range of specific matter and flavour.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Issues, Groups, Covering

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• I think the international appeal of SF is quite understandable since the kinds of people who like to read it, are, by the nature of the beast, interested in other cultures, of which other nations on Earth are the closest available example.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Thinking, Other Cultures, People

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• This means I must pay close attention to the writing, but equally so to the scientific background - which sometimes means doing fairly involved calculations.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Writing, Mean, Attention

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• When something hasn't been around much for a while, and one example of it turns up and catches people's eyes, they go looking for more like it - until they get tired of it again.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Tired, Eye, People

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• There are a significant number of people who appreciate what we do, and most of them gravitate to Analog because this is where they can find it. The other magazines tend to share their audiences, which may result in each of them having a smaller market share.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Numbers, People, Appreciate

  "Analog Editor Stanley Schmidt Finds the Future of Magazines to be Astounding". Interview with Michael A. Burstein, www.mabfan.com. July 23, 2001.

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• There may be something to the suggestion about the pace of technological change intimidating writers, though - it's been awfully hard to keep ahead of real developments.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Real, Technological Change, Suggestions

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• Usually if nobody hates a piece, nobody loves it, either; and a magazine which sets itself the goal of provoking thought is not doing its job if everybody agrees with what it does.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Jobs, Hate, Goal

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• Its limitations are those of the physical universe: it won't let you play with some really wild ideas that aren't possible, but are fun to speculate about.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Fun, Play, Ideas

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• I think the rising and falling popularity of areas like hard SF and far-future SF is, to a considerable extent, the same as any other fashion.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Fashion, Falling In Love, Thinking

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• intricately and intriguingly woven, lots of fun, and extremely thought provoking.

  Stanley Schmidt

  Fun, Thought Provoking, Woven

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