excerpt from yale's science fiction dictionary (1908-1992)

• "Was the Green Sun the abode of some vast Intelligence? The thought was bewildering. Visions of the Unnamable rose, vaguely. Had I, indeed, come upon the dwelling-place of the Eternal?"
  • William Hope Hodgson, The House on the Borderland (1908)
• "Frankenstein: In the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!"
  • Garrett Fort and Francis Edward Faragoh, Frankenstein (film, 1931)
• "I’ve been cursed for delving into the mysteries of life. Perhaps death is sacred and I profaned it. For what a wonderful vision it was. I dreamed of being the first to give to the world the secret that God is so jealous of—the formula for life. Think of the power to create a man—and I did it. I did it! I created a man, and, who knows, in time, I could have trained him to do my will. I could have bred a race. I might even have found the secret of eternal life."
  • William Hurlbut, Bride of Frankenstein (film, 1935)
• "Virtue in the creator is not the same as virtue in the creature. For the creator, if he should love his creature, would be loving only a part of himself; but the creature, praising the creator, praises an infinity beyond himself."
  • Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker (1937)
• "His eyes were fixed upon the fleecy clouds which scurried across the moon. - Up there- God? In a dirty bathrobe?"
  • L. Ron Hubbard, ‘‘Typewriter in the Sky’’ (1940)
• "I never thought of God as humorous," said Father Stone, coldly. "The Creator of the platypus, the camel, the ostrich, and Man? Oh, come now!" Father Peregrine laughed.
  • Ray Bradbury, ‘‘The Fire Balloons’’ (1951)
• "In those days, only God was impending, indwelling and transcendent all at once, and that was their hope. Today, we’ve given them Death instead."
  • James Blish, A Case of Conscience (1958)
• "Thou art God and I am God and all that groks is God, and I am all that I have ever been or seen or felt or experienced. I am all that I grok."
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
• "You were not put on this earth just to get in touch with God."
  • Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962)
• "What had seemed in the Arabic poem to be death was not death but god; or rather God was death, it was one force, one hunter, one cannibal thing, and it missed again and again but, having all eternity, it could afford to miss."
  • Philip K. Dick, ‘‘Faith of Our Fathers’’ (1967)
• "there are universes begging for gods yet He hangs around this one looking for work."
  • Philip José Farmer, ‘‘Riders of the Purple Wage’’ (1967)
• "Scott: Captain, thank heaven! Spock: Mr. Scott, there was no deity involved. It was my cross-circuiting to B that recovered them."
  • Art Wallace, ‘‘Obsession,’’ episode of Star Trek (1967)
• "I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. I made the suns. I made the worlds. I created the lives and the places they inhabit; I move them here, I put them there. They go as I say, they do as I tell them. I am the word and my name is never spoken, the name which no one knows. I am called Ubik, but that is not my name. I am. I shall always be."
  • Philip K. Dick, Ubik (1969)
• "To be an atheist is to maintain God."
  • Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
• "In a smoke-congested back room of the universe the God of my agnostic imagination oversees this crooked card game."
  • Robert Thurston, ‘‘Good-Bye, Shelley, Shirley, Charlotte, Charlene’’(1972)
• "Sidney’s damnation was complete when, his expansion finished, his size and power infinite, his dominance total over a cosmos in which there was now indeed nothing worth his stealing, he realized (in some strange fashion) that he was now God and that even his reincorporation in flesh, a matter now easily within his powers, would not change things much. It had after all been tried by his most immediate predecessor without notable success."
  • Robin Scott Wilson, ‘‘Last Train to Kankakee’’(1972)
• "God is: A. An invisible spirit with a long beard. B. A small dog dead in a hole. C. Everyman. D. The Wizard of Oz."
  • Harlan Ellison, ‘‘The Deathbird’’ (1973)
• "I’m not talking about God as an old man with long white whiskers, either, Harry. I mean something abstract, a force, a power, a current, a reservoir of energy underlying everything and connecting everything. God is that reservoir. That reservoir is God. I think of that reservoir as being something like the sea of molten lava down beneath the earth’s crust: it’s there, it’s full of heat and power, it’s accessible for those who know the way."
  • Robert Silverberg, ‘‘Breckenridge and the Continuum’’ (1973)
• "Who is God? Who is this cloud-thing that has nothing better to do than stare on human pain and now and then poke it with his finger? Is he not bored? Will he not presently wipe it all away, or go away and forget? Or has he already gone away, forgotten?"
  • Edgar Pangborn, ‘‘The Night Wind’’ (1974)
• "I have seen God creating the cosmos, watching its growth, and finally destroying it."
  • Olaf Stapledon, Nebula Maker (1976)
• "Over most of the universe, God was spread in fossil radiation, too old, too thin."
  • Brian W. Aldiss, ‘‘Non-Isotropic’’ (1978)
• "When she thought of Heaven here, it was small and far away, like the City. It had nothing to do with the wilderness. There was no God here; he belonged to people, and where there were no people there was no God."
  • _Ursula K. Le Guin, ‘‘The Eye of the Heron’’ (1978)__
• "Belief in God is apparently a psychological artifact of mammalian reproduction."
  • Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise (1979)
• "If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron. Or else He’s the dumbest designer that ever lived."
  • Spider Robinson, ‘‘God Is an Iron’’ (1979)
• "God does not exist. And anyhow he’s stupid."
  • Philip K. Dick, Valis (1981)
• "Man and the true God are identical—as the Logos and the true God are but a lunatic blind creator and his screwed-up world separate man from God. That the blind creator sincerely imagines that he is the true God only reveals the extent of his occlusion."
  • Philip K. Dick, Valis (1981)
• "I am the Supreme Being; I’m not entirely dim."
  • Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin, Time Bandits (film, 1981)
• "If we assume the existence of an omniscient and omnipotent being, one that knows and can do absolutely anything, then to my own very limited self, it would seem that existence for it would be unbearable. Nothing to wonder about? Nothing to ponder over? Nothing to discover? Eternity in such a heaven would surely be indistinguishable from hell."
  • Isaac Asimov, introduction to X Stands for Unknown (1984)
• "He said God likes to talk to Himself..."
  • William Gibson, Count Zero (1986)

Gods and Demons

• ""Heya, heya!" called the man in front of the trip parlor (Sojourn for Truth—" Not God But An Incredible Simulation!)."
  • Pat Cadigan, ‘‘Fool to Believe’’ (1990)
• "He dreamed, as he often did, of an omniscient Eye in whose infinite perspectives might be sorted every least mystery."
  • William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, The Difference Engine (1991)
• "On Stan’s seventeenth birthday the Wrath of God came again, as it did every six weeks or so."
  • Frederik Pohl, ‘‘The Boy Who Would Live Forever’’ (1999)
• "One golfer a year is hit by lightning. This may be the only evidence we have of God’s existence."
  • Steve Aylett, Atom (2000)
• "It is inconsistent with the nature of the universe for a severely limited, naturally emerged being such as a human to be fully acquainted with the divine, or with created beings of higher orders."
  • Gregory Benford, Eater (2000)
• "All the Johnny Appleseeds became music. The War Against God dates from this moment."
  • John Clute, Appleseed (2001)
• "Sometimes the gods themselves forget the answers to their own riddles."
  • Edwin L. Arnold, Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation (1905)
• "I have given myself to the devil, because the devil is the only god in whom all the tribes believe."
  • Walter M. Miller, Jr., ‘‘The Soul-Empty Ones’’ (1951)
• "The gods do not speak the language of men, any more than men can speak the language of the gods."
  • Miriam Allen deFord, ‘‘The Apotheosis of Ki’’ (1956)
• "Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him."
  • Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961), translated by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox (1970)
• "If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they cannot be very important gods."
  • Arthur C. Clarke, ‘‘Rocket to the Renaissance,’’ revised (1962)
• "A god cannot survive as a memory. We need love, admiration, worship as you need food."
  • Gilbert Ralston and Gene L. Coon, ‘‘Who Mourns for Adonais?’’ episode of Star Trek (1967)
• "The angel was laughing now, but he was dark, and huge, and monstrous, and I knew that angels and devils are really the same. They are angels if you are on their side and devils if you’re against them."
  • Ray Nelson, ‘‘Time Travel for Pedestrians’’ (1972)
• "Even a deity needs a little recreation."
  • T. J. Bass, The Godwhale (1974)
• "There are no gods but those that are muses."
  • Charles L. Grant, ‘‘A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn’s Eye’’ (1978)
• "On the disc, the Gods are not so much worshipped as blamed."
  • Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic (1983)
• "Demons can’t call things weird. I mean, what’s weird to a demon?"
  • Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic (1983)
• "Rob McKenna was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him and to water him."
  • Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1985)
• "Only the solitary may see the gods."
  • Gene Wolfe, Soldier of the Mist (1986)
• "A god can show off once in a while can’t he?"
  • Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988)
• "This interlude has been brought to you by the gods. [. . .] You may now resume your normal destinies, already in progress."
  • Arthur Byron Cover, Stationfall (1989)
• "It was extremely hard to believe in a god when you saw him at breakfast every day."
  • Terry Pratchett, Pyramids (1989)
• "People needed to believe in gods, if only because it was so hard to believe in people."
  • Terry Pratchett, Pyramids (1989)
• "Let me tell you what I think about gods. I think a real god is not going to be so scared or angry that he tries to keep other people down [. . .] A real god doesn’t care about control. A real god already has control of everything that needs controlling. Real gods would want to teach you how to be just like them."
  • Orson Scott Card, Xenocide (1991)
• "The trouble with being a god is that you’ve got no one to pray to."
  • Terry Pratchett, Small Gods (1992)