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The wit and wisdom of our sci-fi faves, collected by Will Salmon
A random by browsable selection of sci-fi quotability from the people who made science fiction and fantasy in 2011…
“There’s a problem with the Daleks. They are the most famous of the Doctor's adversaries and the most frequent, which means they are the most reliably defeatable enemies in the universe.” Steven Moffat
“We wanted to do something very different in this film. He’s a primarily physical villain, he’s a classic movie monster in a way – but with a terrific brain.” Christopher Nolan on Bane
“If we’re going to shoot somebody, shoot the pregnant woman or the old lady first.” Tom Hardy on Bane
“I’ve got one more story that I can tell – just one more that has Gwen right at the centre of it.” Russell T Davies on Torchwood
“I’d have a very hard time taking a Barely Legal magazine and masturbating in a bathroom if I knew that Jesus could walk in.” Immortals director Tarsem Singh
“No one sees themselves as objectively evil for absolutely no purpose.” Aaron Dembski-Bowden
“I really, really struggled with the Watchmen film. I just thought it was f**king appalling.” Russell Howard
“I stand by it as one of the best comic book adaptations to date.” Dave Gibbons on Watchmen
“I thought he should have died in the last one, just to give it some bottom. George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.” Harrison Ford
“He’s just the same as everybody else. He’s not noble 100% and amazing 100%. He’s… just a cheap fighter, he’s poor, he’s hungry, he’s desperate!” Nathan Fillion on Malcolm Reynolds
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“It seems like a weirdly British thing to get hung up on. I’ve got no problem sitting down and watching an hour of Molly and Charlotte, and certain people are very, very happy to sit down and watch Theo and Will for an hour. I mean, Theo in particular – I’ve had no complaints from any woman I know, whatsoever. Especially the scene when he unnecessarily vaulted over a skip in episode two. ” Bedlam writer Neil Jones on casting beautiful people
“George Takei says that I have a, ‘Big, shiny, ego!’ Well, actors have big egos. If mine is shiny, it’s because I tend to it very carefully and lovingly. Perhaps George’s needs a good polish.” William Shatner
“I’m a hungry, selfish actor. I like doing lots of different stuff, so I decided to move on and be proud of the two series I’d done.” Robert Sheehan on leaving Misfits
“I think he’s out of his f**king mind. It’s a cushty little job this.” Joe Gilgun on Robert Sheehan
“I can’t do serious as serious. I can do serious as comedy.” Jasper Fforde
“I’m really camp. I’m actually a gay man!” Hayley Atwell
“You can be human and imagine what it’s like to be a vampire, and you can be a vampire and you can remember what it’s like to be human. Somewhere in the middle there’s going to be a really shitty three or four years where you adapt, going from one thing to the other thing.” Jon Courtenay Grimwood
“Occupy is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.” Frank Miller on Occupy Wall Street
“I’m sure if it had been a bunch of young, sociopathic vigilantes with Batman make-up on their faces, he’d be more in favour of it.” Alan Moore on Frank Miller
“I remember getting the script and thinking to myself, ‘Wow, they want me to play a toy?’” Dolph Lundgren on Masters Of The Universe
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“The idea that they presented me with was so good I just couldn’t walk away.” Liz Sarnoff on Alcatraz
“I don’t understand the basic drive behind writing fanfic, and I would never, never read it because to me that’s just, you know, that’s just off limits. It’s not something I would ever do.” Charlaine Harris
“Bin Laden was a classic super-villain because he had his own cave and his own stealthy, shadowy organisation. But if he wants to really do the business he’ll need to make a spectacular return from the dead with terrifying new powers he's gained in the underworld.” Grant Morrison
“I love the idea of a skinny kid beating the crap out of the huge guys.” Andrew Garfield on being Spider-Man
“Our heroic figures have become bland, tame, teen-friendly, moral and middle-American to a fault. Above all, they are safe.” Richard Morgan
“It was garbage, yet very addictive garbage. There’s lots of violence, the women take their clothes off and it’s kind of fun.” Salman Rushdie on Game Of Thrones
“I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death. But, you know, AFTER.” Joss Whedon on the proposed Buffy movie
“Let Buffy live. Why not? If they wanted me to be a part of the new Buffy movie, I think that would be fantastic.” Kristy Swanson
“To try to do Buffy without Joss Whedon? I mean, that’s, like, honestly, to be incredibly non-eloquent: that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard” Sarah Michelle Gellar
“I own 23% of the world's black.” Neil Gaiman
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“An actor's job is to do what children do naturally.” Wil Wheaton
“I always thought it would be more interesting to think about Reed Richards. He could stretch, and sexually, that would seem to be a great asset.” Stan Lee
“I’m not very good at ideas. I don’t know much about science.” SF author Eric Brown
“I really think this one is better even than Casino Royale .” Daniel Craig on Skyfall
“You might not know this, but one of my responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief is to keep an eye on robots. And I’m pleased to report that the robots you manufacture here seem peaceful – at least for now.” Barack Obama
“Occasionally people say, ‘But you’re not really science fiction; you’re escaping the genre.’ Not really! I know it’s meant nicely, but I would much rather operate as a conduit than an outlier.” China Miéville
“I've always been a big fan of sexuality in films.” Zack Snyder
“I’m trying to write a book in 50 days. I’m like a prisoner in a cell making a line on a piece of paper every day, counting the days to his release!” John Ajvide Lindqvist
“I think that we really did try to go as hardcore as we could.” Kristen Stewart on Breaking Dawn ’s birth scene
“I’m not a fan of Twilight, but then again I’m a 40 year-old heterosexual.” Toby Whithouse
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“Russell T Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic, but we have to put that aside and start from scratch.” David Yates on the Doctor Who movie
“David was talking a little out of turn, there; a very, very brilliant director but no, the film as described by him, of course we’re not going to do that. A film that contradicts the television series, it would be a heathen thing to do...” Steven Moffat on the Doctor Who movie
“We bonded over a noise a droid made in Star Wars , so I am a geek, but I’m a different kind of geek, I think. Maybe it makes me more of a geek, the fact that I try to shun my geek background.” Nick Frost on Simon Pegg
“I have to say I never really believed it was the end of it. It’s got such a following around the world.” Ben Miller on Primeval
“He wants to be normal, but just isn't. And I think people love that about him.” Russell Tovey on Being Human ’s George
“I think those interrelated Marvel movies are great fun. The Avengers will be like Ocean’s Eleven with the superhero all-stars!” Natalie Portman
“If I’m stuck playing a character, let’s make it him.” Chris Evans on Captain America
“Every time I see Bill I say, ‘I’m the guy that killed you.’ And he says, ‘Yeah, you shot me in the back.’ I say, ‘Talk to the producers about that.’ They gave him such a lousy send off.” Malcolm McDowell on the death of Captain Kirk
“If Sookie wasn’t so stubborn, our show would be a hell of a lot less exciting.” Anna Paquin
“I've got a brilliant idea for the last book that nobody has ever done in comics. Shall I tell you what it is? You’ll have to turn that dictaphone off first...” Jonathan Ross
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“She started shit-talking our captain.” Shia LaBeouf on Megan Fox
“She sent me a text three months ago. She said, ‘I hope you’re doing well.’ I responded, ‘Who is this?’ She goes, ‘Megan, you dork!’” Michael Bay on Megan Fox
“That’s something I miss in sci-fi: it’s very rare that you have science fiction that has a naturalistic, character-based sense of humour.” Zak Penn on Alphas
"Alan Moore isn’t a misogynist, but f**k, he’s obsessed with rape. I managed to do 30 years in comics without any rape!” Grant Morrison
“It’s like the emotional range of Shakespeare with the action and blood of Tarantino. The body count in this film is massive.” Daniel Radcliffe on Deathly Hallows Part Two
“We were in the writers’ room, and I said, ‘He should just, you know, strangle her, and literally break her neck. But for her that’s just really good sex.’” True Blood ’s Alan Ball on kinky vampire sex
“Maybe a fifth, but I ain’t going to Mars.” Harrison Ford on Indy 5
“I don’t believe in explaining too much. I think less is very much more in every sense.” James Watkins, director of The Woman in Black
“What if I f**k it up at the end? What if I do a L ost ? Then they’ll come after me with pitchforks and torches.” George RR Martin on finishing A Song Of Ice And Fire
“George. You got yourself a feud, mother... I’ve just been informed that George is working on his feud response. I’ll have it in FIVE YEARS!” Lost ’s Damon Lindelof
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“It’s always been frustrating to me, because really, I just want to be, like, a Klingon or something. I really would love to play a Klingon. It’s like, goddamit, will I ever get to play a Klingon?” Paul Giamatti
“Part of my job is being a bit tarty.” Steven Moffat
“I could write a book and I could set it in Tombstone, Arizona, I could have cowboys and stage coaches, and the moment I put in one f**king dragon, they’d call me a fantasy writer.” Terry Pratchett
“It was the saddest thing in the world; I still can’t believe it. I’m still staggered, and all of us are. We’re properly heartbroken.” Russell T Davies on Elizabeth Sladen’s passing
“The three words that we had were scary, sexy and surprising. It’s got all of those elements.” Russell Mulcahy on Teen Wolf
“I’d quite like to have Patrick Stewart’s superpower – his ability to play any Englishman.” James McAvoy
“I do get a lot of scripts sent to me where they basically want me to play Eric from True Blood , but just a different name in a different movie. That’s not interesting to me.” Alexander Skarsgård
“I’m a character writer. That’s what I do best. When I have to write an action scene, it’s the most tedious thing in the world for me.” Joe Michael Straczynski
“I’m writing an autobiographical novel that’s pure fantasy at the same time... I’m not coming out of it too well I have to say... I keep thinking, ‘Wanker!’” Michael Moorcock
“Purity Brown was an immensely erotic figure in my young life.” China Miéville
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“When you look at what The Avengers should be, the kind of story you’re looking at is much more like The Magnificent Seven or The Dirty Dozen .” Zak Penn
“Literature is about words and ideas and people. It’s not about drawing maps.” Christopher Priest
“We had what we called a cheese-meter. We’d say, ‘Alright, this is what we’re gonna do...’ Then if our cheese-meter rose and it just became too cheesy or too ridiculous we would yell and say, ‘No, no no. That's not right.’” Martin Campbell on Green Lantern
“It was definitely interesting filming the series premiere, because we had to figure out the succubus kiss and what that means. So there was a lot of practice and that guest star had a lot of extra takes. Whether he liked that or not you’ll have to ask him! ” Anna Silk on Lost Girl
“Fairies have always been fascinating to me, but dark, ugly ones most fascinating of all.” Guillermo del Toro
“ Rising Stars was a tragedy both in the story and in the real world.” Joe Michael Straczynski
“We’ve seen Sookie tempted by Eric for four years, and it was just like, ‘For f**ks sake, just get it on already.’ It was the longest foreplay I’ve ever seen.” Stephen Moyer
“In a way I think it’s kind of cool that so far, each time out, there’s been someone different. He’s mutating into different actors.” Eric Bana on the changing face of the Hulk
“Howard’s a bloody genius. Not well either, it’s fair to say. Not well mentally.” Joe Gilgun on Howard Overman
“I usually identify with the nerds but these ones just reinforce the social rules. Their values are fascistic. All those people marching around in masks and boots – the superhero imagery is totally fascist!” Michel Gondry on Comic Con
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“Matt Smith may very well turn out to be the greatest Doctor of all time.” Neil Gaiman
“We have had a vision of the thing for a while. We have been working on it. We have a bunch of songs and a few scenes. We need a little free time and right now that’s plenty hard to come by.” Joss Whedon on Dr Horrible 2
“Tim [from Spaced ] would have turned into some bitter little blogger in a back room.” Simon Pegg
“The Railway Arms is heaven, isn’t it? Maybe that’s what we’ll do. Unite the two shows.” Ashley Pharoah on Eternal Law and Ashes To Ashes
“I don’t want to do Hellboy 3 without Ron Perlman. I would find it impossible.” Guillermo del Toro
“I felt there was still life in the old sod, but it has evolved into something else.” Ridley Scott on Prometheus
“I hope that it’s going to be one of the scariest things that people have seen on TV in a long time.” Caroline Skinner on The Fades
“It was a Hollywood blockbuster, which was fine, but I’ll go with me Kirk and Picard.” Tom Morello on Star Trek
“I saw the Mel Gibson movie Signs and thought to myself, ‘What if that happened here in Stockwell?’” Joe Cornish
“Only one death threat, two demands for my immediate resignation, and two for my suicide. IT’S A HIT!!” Steven Moffat on “A Good Man Goes To War”
