Top 100 Alan Dean Foster Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Those who had led the rebellion had under-estimated the deeply buried desire of far too large a proportion of the population who simply preferred to be told what to do. Much easier it was to follow orders than to think for oneself. So everyone had argued and debated and discussed. Until it was too late.”

— Alan Dean Foster

52. “Besides the mistakes that are pointed out, I love the way readers become involved with the characters. When readers start asking about character motivations instead of concentrating on the special effects, it means you’re connecting with them on a personal level.”

— Alan Dean Foster

53. “A little bit of everything you admire eventually rubs off on you.”

— Alan Dean Foster

54. “Curiosity, after all, was what had driven mankind out from his isolated, unimportant world and across the gulf between the stars. It had also, he thoughtfully reminded himself, killed the figurative cat.”

— Alan Dean Foster

55. “I hear entire symphonies, oratorios, in my head, but I can’t write a note.”

— Alan Dean Foster

56. “I’m not afraid of the dark I know. It’s the dark I don’t that terrifies me.”

— Alan Dean Foster

57. “I haven’t got time to explain it to you, kid, but – that’s not how the Force works.”

— Alan Dean Foster

58. “Don’t try to write to the trend of the moment.”

— Alan Dean Foster

59. “Rule makers always draw up their precious rules and regulations in safety and comfort, not out in the field, where those same absolutes are supposed to be applied. At those times we have to rely on our own minds and feelings.”

— Alan Dean Foster

60. “Writing allows me the time to travel and see the world, which is what I always wanted to do. I’d really like to have been Sir Richard Francis Burton, but it’s the wrong century.”

— Alan Dean Foster

61. “She finally managed to free her fingers from his. “I know how to run without you holding my hand!”

— Alan Dean Foster

62. “You stink of humanity,′ he murmured, ’but I’ll love you just the same.”

— Alan Dean Foster

63. “If there was one thing a competent fighting force did not need, Hux knew, it was unforeseen outbursts of individuality.”

— Alan Dean Foster

64. “One downward cut, she saw. One quick, final strike, and she could kill him. The landing lights of a shuttle appeared in the distance, coming over the trees in her direction. She had to make a decision, now. Kill him, a voice inside her head said. It was amorphous, unidentifiable, raw. Pure vengeful emotion. So easy, she told herself. So quick.”

— Alan Dean Foster

65. “I try to challenge myself as much as possible, as often as possible.”

— Alan Dean Foster

66. “There are even a handful who like to collect biological specimens. Those with money collect live ones. Those without money become scientists.”

— Alan Dean Foster

67. “He did not put his feelings down to simple xenophobia. Basically, he hadn’t expected the alien to be so completely alien.”

— Alan Dean Foster

68. “Crazy thing is, it’s all real. The Jedi, the Force – it’s true. All true.”

— Alan Dean Foster

69. “I write early in the morning, usually after reading portions of at least half a dozen newspapers on the web.”

— Alan Dean Foster

70. “You always think you can make it up to somebody – later, you know.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But now I never can. I never can.”

— Alan Dean Foster

71. “I got a bad feeling about this.” –.”

— Alan Dean Foster

72. “With a shock, the trooper who had arrived to render aid to his fallen comrade recognized the one whose life was now bleeding out inside his armor. They had trained together. Shared meals, stories, experiences together. Now they were sharing death together.”

— Alan Dean Foster

73. “I usually do one con a year as a GoH and try to make the World Fantasy Convention for business purposes. Last year I went to a worldcon for the first time in two decades. I may go again this year.”

— Alan Dean Foster

74. “I will remove these restraints. And leave this cell, with the door open, and retire to my living quarters. I will speak of this encounter to no one.”

— Alan Dean Foster

75. “That was her life, Rey reflected: a succession of anxious moments, interrupted only by the novelty of occasional panic.”

— Alan Dean Foster

76. “Yes, there’s a lot of sand here. Beebee-Ate? Okay. Hello, Beebee-Ate. My name is Rey. No, just Rey.”

— Alan Dean Foster

77. “Hearing his howls of outrage, a pair of stormtroopers crossing at the far end of the access hallway changed course to investigate. What they saw within the cell as bits and pieces of red-hot debris came flying out caused them to retreat the way they had come – fast.”

— Alan Dean Foster

78. “Awkwardly pressed up against him, the Princess seemed to take no notice of their proximity. In the dampness, though, her body heat was near palpable to Luke and he had to force himself to keep his attention on what he was doing.”

— Alan Dean Foster

79. “The poetry, you see, was when he moved. – “Dream Done Green.”

— Alan Dean Foster

80. “There’s certainly more new SF available than when I started writing. That means there’s also more bad SF available. Whether there is also more good is a matter for future historians of the field.”

— Alan Dean Foster

81. “You know, Burke, I don’t know which species is worse. You don’t see them killing each other for a percentage.”

— Alan Dean Foster

82. “You can still have children. We’ll buy out your contract. You’ll get everything you deserve. We owe you.’ She wavered. ‘You’re not going to take it back?”

— Alan Dean Foster

83. “Parker sat still, letting the last vestiges of the memory fade from his mind. They left a pleasantly lascivious residue behind. Absently, he flipped a key switch over his console. A gratifyingly green light appeared above it, held steady.”

— Alan Dean Foster

84. “This is the deep-space commercial tug Nostromo, registration number one eight zero, two four six, en route to Earth with bulk cargo crude petroleum and appropriate refinery. Calling Antarctica traffic control. Do you read me? Over.”

— Alan Dean Foster

85. “My mommy always said there were no such things as monsters. No real ones. But there are.”

— Alan Dean Foster

86. “This time she was sure she managed a grin. ‘I can’t figure you, Hicks. Soldiers aren’t supposed to be optimists.’ ‘Yeah, I know. You’re not the first to point it out. I’m a freakin’ anomaly.”

— Alan Dean Foster

87. “I’ve found that most people do a lot of talking and they wind up not saying very much. Especially adults when they’re talking to children. It’s kind of like they enjoy talking at you but not to you. They want you to listen to them all the time, but they don’t want to listen to you. I think that’s pretty stupid. Just because you’re small doesn’t mean you don’t have some important things to say.”

— Alan Dean Foster

88. “I’m not afraid of the dark I know. It’s the dark I don’t that terrifies me. Especially when it’s filled with noises like that distress call.”

— Alan Dean Foster

89. “Building better worlds.”

— Alan Dean Foster

90. “The trouble with computers, she thought, was that they had no intuitive senses. Only deductive ones. You had to ask the right question.”

— Alan Dean Foster

91. “You try kicking some butts here and they’ll eat your leg right off.”

— Alan Dean Foster

92. “That’s not what’s bothering you, is it? You’re worried about what they might find. Or have we all misjudged you and you’re really a high-minded seeker after knowledge, a true devotee of pushing back the frontiers of the known universe?’ ‘Hell, no.’ Parker didn’t seem the least offended by Ripley’s casual sarcasm. ‘I’m a true devotee of pushing back the frontiers of my bank account.”

— Alan Dean Foster

93. “You’re all crazy,’ he muttered. ‘You know that.’ ‘Man,’ Vasquez told him softly, ’why else would anyone join the Colonial Marines?”

— Alan Dean Foster

94. “It was exciting and intellectually gratifying to speculate on what might lie waiting in the black gulfs when one was behind the business end of a telescope, quite another to do so isolated on an unpleasant little speck of a world such as this, confronted by a ship of non-human manufacture that uncomfortably resembled a growth instead of a familiar device for manipulating and overcoming the neat laws of physics.”

— Alan Dean Foster

95. “Naturally, there was nothing to say. Kane was dead. He’d been alive, now he was not alive. None of the crew were particularly strong with words.”

— Alan Dean Foster

96. “As all foot soldiers have known for thousands of years, there’s nothing noble about dying. Only an irritating finality. Once.”

— Alan Dean Foster

97. “Drake complied. ‘Learned that one in tech class,’ he informed the occupants of the operations bay. ‘Got to make sure you hit the left side only or it doesn’t work.’ ‘What happens if you hit the right side?’ Ripley asked curiously. ‘You overload the internal pressure control, the one that keeps your helmet on your head.’ She could see Drake smiling wolfishly into Frost’s camera. ‘Your eyeballs implode and your brains explode.’ ‘What brains?’ Vasquez let out a snort.”

— Alan Dean Foster

98. “Say nothing,” Essada suggested. “It makes you more tolerable.”

— Alan Dean Foster

99. “If you know less than everything, you always feel inadequate.”

— Alan Dean Foster

100. “The Empire does what is necessary,” the subofficer observed in a phlegmatic manner which would have gratified his superiors.”

— Alan Dean Foster