I have a kind of standard explanation why, which goes like this: Science fiction is one way of making sense out of a senseless world.

- John Thomas Sladek

The problem and privilege we all have is being alive in this century and able to read this language. It makes any list meaningless except the list of…

- John Thomas Sladek

Most publishers seem very reluctant to publish short story collections at all; they bring them out in paperback, often disguised as novels.

- John Thomas Sladek

Whatever I'm reading at the moment seems to influence whatever I'm writing.

- John Thomas Sladek

This is mainly because I spend a lot of time writing and so don't have much time to read; I hate to waste that time reading what may turn out to be j…

- John Thomas Sladek

People have laughed at all great inventors and discoverers.

- John Thomas Sladek

In most conventional novels, God is not allowed to be nuts. Nor are nuts allowed to be God.

- John Thomas Sladek

We didn't have a phone when I was a kid, and I was too shy to smash any public phones, and our town didn't have a pool hall either, so I had to hang …

- John Thomas Sladek

Anything can happen in SF. And the fact that nothing ever does happen in SF is only due to the poverty of our imaginations, we who write it or edit i…

- John Thomas Sladek