Samuel R. Delany Quotes

Imagination is the only key to the future. Without it none exists - with it all things are possible.

Imagination - that's the future for us.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world

I don't ever want to lose that mind-set where you've got to be able to realize different ideas-slash-fantasies-slash-possibilities in your life.

Children live in a world filled with possibilities. Their thoughts roam without boundaries, like dreams – full of images, places and actions. Unlike adults, they can’t temper their imaginations with experience. So, when a child plays with a toy or reads a story, it becomes an adventure, a new reality to them.

I'd like to recover some of the strangeness and wonder of consideration of the future.

What drives the creative person is that we see it all.

I've always been inspired by small details that make me wander. My mother would ask me, 'What are you looking at so intensely?' I would answer, 'Everything and nothing.' She really supported my wanderings, called me Marco Polo.

Growing up, I never gave a thought to being a writer. All I ever wanted to be was a traveler and explorer. Science-fiction allowed me to go places that were otherwise inaccessible, which is why I started reading it. I was going to be a lawyer, but I got saved.

We always have a take that's 'one for fun', so once you've got what you need, you can do what you like. Something does occasionally pop out of that tree. I'm always open to ideas.

At all times, think like a writer, and keep those antennae twitching - that way, you pick up new ideas.

I feel so free and open to ideas, and I get inspired by everything.

That's what I'm interested in: the space in between, the moment of imagining what is possible and yet not knowing what that is.

I think at any age, you can stay open and creative and excited.

The child who has no need to feign empirical knowledge about life can wonder and fantasise with great ease. The world is his oyster, or any other thing he wants it to be.

The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.

Read a lot, live your life, and listen and watch, so that your mind fills up with millions of images.

Victorville gave me opportunity to go inside and explore my imagination a bit.

I dwell in possibility.

Life would have been absolutely empty without imagination.

The impulse to dream was slowly beaten out of me by experience. Now it surged up again and I hungered for books, new ways of looking and seeing.

Some men see things as they are and say “Why?” I dream things that never were and say, “Why not?”

I truly find inspiration everywhere. I always tell students, and young people starting out, that the single most important skill, next to listening, is to pay attention. You never know where inspiration will strike.

I'm never short of inspiration. There are always new ideas - and new adventures.

I've always been one of those people who wondered 'What if...'