Reality (From Fiction to Science-Fiction)

"The horror of the Same Old Thing is [...] an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, and inconstancy in friendship. The humans live in time, and experience reality successively. To experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they must experience change. And since they need change, the Enemy (being a hedonist at heart) has made change pleasurable to them." (C. S. Lewis, "The Screwtape Letters", 1942)

"It is the normal lot of people who must live this life [in space] to be - by terrestrial standards—insane. Insanity under such conditions is a useful and logical defense mechanism, an invaluable and salutary retreat from reality." (Charles L Harness, "The Paradox Men", 1949)

"It seemed as if the structure of reality trembled for an instant, and that behind the world of the senses he caught a glimpse of another and totally different universe [...]" (Arthur C Clarke, "The City and the Stars", 1956)

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." (Shirley Jackson, "The Haunting of Hill House", 1959)

"Reality? It is only the illusion we can agree upon." (James Gunn, "The Joy Makers", 1961)

"When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating." (Gene Roddenberry, "Star Trek" ["The Menagerie"], 1966)

"The whole of modern so-called existence is an attempt to deny reality insofar as it exists."John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar", 1968)

"Reality, to me, is not so much something that you perceive, but something you make." (Philip K Dick, "The Android and the Human", 1972)

"The theory changes the reality it describes." (Philip K Dick, "Flow My Tears the Policeman Said", 1974)

"We exist in time. Time is what binds molecules to make your brown eyes, your yellow hair, your thick fingers. Time changes the structures, alters hair or fingers, dims the eyes, immutably mutating reality. Time, itself unchanging, is the cosmic glue, the universal antisolvent that holds our worlds together." (Marta Randall, "Secret Rider", 1976)

"There was no substitute for reality; one should beware of imitations." (Arthur C Clarke, "The Fountains of Paradise", 1979)

"Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, it doesn’t go away." (Philip K Dick, "Valis", 1981)

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." (Philip K Dick, "How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later", 1985)

"It is now known to science that there are many more dimensions than the classical four. Scientists say that these don’t normally impinge on the world because the extra dimensions are very small and curve in on themselves, and that since reality is fractal most of it is tucked inside itself. This means either that the universe is more full of wonders than we can hope to understand or, more probably, that scientists make things up as they go along." (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids, 1989)

"It is always hard when reality intrudes on belief." (Alan D Foster, "Cyber Way", 1990)

"The dreams of people are in the machines, a planet network of active imaginations hooked into their made-up, make-believe worlds. Artificial reality is taking over; it has its own children." (Storm Constantine, "Immaculate", 1991)