"Even now, I cannot decide whether I was foolish dupe or noble and tragic lover. Or whether the two are one and the same."
Norman Richard Spinrad is an American science fiction author, essayist, and critic. His fiction has won the Prix Apollo and been nominated for numerous awards, including the Hugo Award and multiple Nebula Awards.
"Thus human culture has been as much a product of the process of natural selection as the human species. We are not merely clockwork oranges, the clockwork itself, the social programming which determines our “repertoires of behavior,” how we respond to the world around us, is itself the product of a blind deterministic process."
Norman Spinrad"The saddest day of your life isnt when you decide to sell out. The saddest day of your life is when you decide to sell out and nobody wants to buy."
Norman Spinrad"True civilization consists precisely of conventions, rituals, and modes of oblique communication whereby the chaos within and the void without may be expressed and contained within the harmonious consensus of shared social objectivity, thus maintaining our bubble of crafted reality, the necessary illusion."
Norman Spinrad"Any attempt at willful ignorance would now be futile or worse; the only talisman against excessive knowledge that might have puissance would be more knowledge."
Norman Spinrad"“Genius such as yours is a genetic gift.” “So I have heard from my parents.”"
Norman Spinrad"“In fifteen billion years did spirit out of less than dust evolve,” he said. “In fifteen billion more will not this universe of stars to less than dust return? Whence did it come? What is there when it is gone?”"
Norman Spinrad