Our job is not to predict the future. Rather, it's to suggest all the possible futures - so that society can make informed decisions about where we want to go.
Robert J. SawyerRead
People are looking for a simplicity in their fictional worlds where good and evil are clearly delineated, that you can't find in the real world, and that provides an enormous comfort - and that, I think, has an awful lot to do with the reason fantasy is so popular.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Fantasy offers clear distinctions between good and evil, providing comfort that reality lacks.
In this quote, Robert J. Sawyer highlights the allure of fantasy fiction, suggesting that many people seek solace in stories where moral boundaries are well-defined. Unlike the complexity and ambiguity of real life, where good and evil often blur, fantasy provides a straightforward narrative that allows individuals to escape into a world that feels safer and more comforting.
Themes
FantasyGoodEvilComfortReal World
In practice
Example use cases
During a book club discussion, one could say, 'As Robert J. Sawyer illustrates, fantasy provides the simplicity in moral distinctions that we often yearn for in a complex world.'
More from Robert J. Sawyer
All quotes →One of the things that science fiction gets to do is thought experiments about the human condition that would be impractical or unethical to conduct in real life.
Robert J. SawyerRead
Similar quotes
Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's.
Bertrand RussellRead
One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.
Georg C. LichtenbergRead
Idiots are always in favour of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favour of equality.
George Bernard ShawRead
I went to live on a kibbutz, and I'd idealized the world of collective, agrarian work, where everyone was equal, everyone contributed, that all this awful European intellectual stuff just fell away.
Tony JudtRead
When we hear a house has fallen do we ask if the ceiling fell with it?
Chinua AchebeRead
Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness.
Alveda KingRead