Brian Aldiss Quotes

Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?

Human life must be some form of mistake.

Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead.

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment, it is all that links them together.

Any art worthy of its name should address 'life', 'man', 'nature', 'death' and 'tragedy'.

The existentialist says at once that man is anguish.

At the heart of life lies a mystery that everybody has to wrestle with. What the heck are we doing here? How does this world work, and how do I fit?

I'm a Nietzschean scholar. I've read an immense amount about nihilism and existentialism.

As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it.

So he lived, not knowing and not seeing any chance of knowing what he was and for what purpose he had been placed in the word.

I don't know the meaning of life. I don't know why we are here. I think life is full of anxieties and fears and tears. It has a lot of grief in it, and it can be very grim. And I do not want to be the one who tries to tell somebody else what life is all about. To me it's a complete mystery.

If I want to read something that's really giving me something serious and fundamental to think about, about the human condition, if you like, or what we're all doing here, or what's going on, then I'd rather read something by a scientist in the life sciences, like Richard Dawkins, for instance.

I felt, that night, on that stage, under that skull, incredibly close to everything in the universe, but also extremely alone. I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live. What exactly made it worth it? What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What's so great about feeling and dreaming?

Martin in particular concluded that man was born to live either in the convulsions of misery, or in the lethargy of boredom.

Through the ages, man's main concern was life after death. Today, for the first time, we find we must ask questions about whether there will be life before death.

The most important question a human being has to face... What is it? The question, Why are we here?

I came into this world anxious to uncover the meaning of things, my soul desirous to be at origin of the world, and here I am an object among other objects.

Is there life before death? - that is the question!

Are we not all flung into the world for no other purpose than to hate each other, and so to torture ourselves and one another?

I had to philosophize. Otherwise, I could not live in this world.

I came into the world imbued with the will to find a meaning in things, my spirit filled with the desire to attain to the source of the world, and then I found that I was an object in the midst of other objects.

Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And If I am compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I want to see him.