Martin Rees Quotes

The important thing isn't the soundness or otherwise of the argument, but for it to make you think.

I was lucky because my mum was a teacher and showed me how to read and write. But most importantly, she encouraged me to use my imagination.

I want big ideas to have aesthetic relevance. I want to tickle people's intellectual sensibilities and instill a sense of wonder.

Scientists and philosophers tend to treat knowledge, imagination and love as if they were all very separate parts of human nature. But when it comes to children, all three are deeply entwined. Children learn the truth by imagining all the ways the world could be, and testing those possibilities.

I think anybody with any intelligence sits down and sees Star Trek not a kids' show.

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

People find ideas a bore because they do not distinguish between live ones and stuffed ones on a shelf.

Class I to XII wasn't much help; I was always a mediocre student. But when I pursued higher education and studied economics with theatre or psychology with science fiction, I got a whole new world view.

The books that help you the most are those which make you think the most.

One hopes that with a book or movie, the reader or the audience will emerge from it thinking. That's the most you can hope for: that you've raised questions that will be there for the audience to think about later.

Science fiction works best when it stimulates debate.

It's important to collect unusual characters. It keeps you sharp.

Good science fiction is intelligent. It asks big questions that are on people's minds. It's not impossible. It has some sort of root in the abstract.

What I've found I really like about sci-fi is it can look at philosophical questions about humanity but in a different context. It can really make you think. That's what 'Doctor Who' does, even if it's a bit silly some other times.

The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

The cool thing about reading is that when you read a short story or you read something that takes your mind and expands where your thoughts can go, that's powerful.

I'm a very skeptical guy: my willing suspension of disbelief doesn't go very far when I'm reading other people's SF, and it goes even less far when I'm writing my own.

There's a richness that reading gives you, an opportunity to probe more than any other medium I know of. Reading is about not being content with the surface.

The best kind of entertainment is the kind that also makes you question something or think outside the box or live another life. Those are the stories that I'm drawn to.

I think you have to be creative to make a difference in science.

The beauty of science fiction is that it takes the audience's guard down; they're much more willing to open themselves up and allow themselves to be questioned and have their values questioned when they don't think we're talking about their world or them and what they're used to.

Any educated person recognizes that curiosity and creativity aren't just important; they are among the essential human activities.

I like my mind being stimulated. I like discovering new concepts.

A person who does not read cannot think. He may have good mental processes, but he has nothing to think about. You can feel for people or natural phenomena and react to them, but they are not ideas. You cannot think about them.

Once children learn how to learn, nothing is going to narrow their mind. The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another.