Rian Johnson Quotes

As a younger person, I was obsessed with Ray Bradbury, and I think his stories did more to shape me as a storyteller than anybody else - even though, when I read them now, a lot of them seem overly sentimental. But that's probably the writer that I've thought about the most, even though I don't necessarily like a lot of his work.

Good sci-fi and fantasy use fantastical situations to represent real-life issues. It really is all a metaphor for what we all go through as humans.

NI love watching science fiction because I feel like when it's done well, it's not just monsters, but philosophy. Really good science fiction like, '2001,' for example, or the first 'Matrix.' But it takes someone who's got a brain and thinks in order to do really good science fiction.

I suppose if I was to have to pick a few, Ursula LeGuin would have to top the list. It was while reading her work that I decided I wanted to be an author.

I love sci-fi, especially when it thrives on a thought-provoking story, rather than explosions.

The move to creating stories was a natural progression for me, but the most pivotal time was probably in 6th grade: That year, a friend introduced me to the stories of Ray Bradbury, and a student teacher introduced me to creative writing.

I always felt that sci-fi and fantasy were my thing. Bit of a geek, I'm afraid. But I like creating worlds, and I felt it was a genre that gave me more freedom. It just seemed like I belonged there.

Fiction is about telling a good story, first and foremost. But of course, everything I'm interested in or angry about leaks into my writing, from art to violence against women.

Everything important in sci-fi showed up in the magazines first. It's the proving ground for new writers and new ideas.

I think the role of science fiction is not at all to prophesy. I think it is to tell interesting, vivid, strange stories that at their best are dreamlike intense versions and visions of today.

I love theater. I love sitting in an audience and having the actors right there, playing out what it means to be a human being.

I want to do a little bit of everything. I love sci-fi. I think it's more the characters that draw me towards things. I like strong women. I'm very interested in futuristic stuff, anything.

I would be more frightened as a writer if people thought my movies were like science fiction.

When I think about myself as a writer, for sure I am a science fiction writer. The tools of extrapolation, the tools of anticipating the future - those are science fictional questions.

I think of science fiction as being part of the great river of imaginative fiction that has flowed through English literature, probably for 400 or 500 years, well predating modern science.

What five books would I like to be remembered for? Well... Tau Zero, I like that one especially. It was somewhat of a tour de force, and I think it got across what I was trying for.

It's the imagination that is involved in sci-fi, and fantasy is what draws me to it. Stories, everything.

I think when science fiction is at its worst, it's just spaceships flying around shooting at each other. There has to be a lot more going on than that... science fiction is about exploring new worlds and new ideas, not about ray guns and action, necessarily.

In really, really good science fiction, the line between the science and the fiction is blurry.

I think the least important thing about science fiction for me is its predictive capacity.

I realized that everything important in sci-fi showed up in the magazines first. It's the proving ground for new writers and new ideas.

I don't go around thinking I'm Ray Bradbury all the time.

To my mind, the best SF addresses itself to problems of the here and now, or even to problems which have never been solved and never will be solved - I'm thinking of Philip K. Dick's work here, dealing with questions of reality, for example.

I've done other things, but it always seems like my sci-fi projects have been what people respond to the most, because those fans are extraordinary, so passionate.

Poul Anderson's 'The High Crusade' may have had a greater impact on my development as a writer than any other book I ever read.