Fredric Brown
25 Quotations from Fredric Brown
| BEM n. | 1949 All Good Bems in Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr. 125/2 B-bems?… You mean you are b-bug-eyed monsters? That’s what Elmo means by Bems, but you aren’t. |
| BEM n. | 1949 in Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr. 128/2 They were really Bems, by the way. Two heads apiece, five limbs—and they could use all five as either arms or legs—six eyes apiece, three to a head, on long stems. You should have seen them. |
| blowup n. | 1949 Letter to Phoenix in Astounding Science Fiction Aug. 149/1 It’s not like a blow-up war, when nine-tenths or more of the population of Earth…is killed. |
| bug-eyed monster n. | 1949 All Good BEMs in Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr. 125/2 B-bems?… You mean you are b-bug-eyed monsters? That’s what Elmo means by Bems, but you aren’t. |
| contraterrene adj. | 1946 Placet Is Crazy Place in Astounding Science-Fiction May 119/2 It boils down to this; Argyle I is terrene matter and Argyle II is contraterrene, or negative matter. |
| extraterrestrial n. | 1950 Honeymoon in Hell in Galaxy Science Fiction Nov. 14/2 Suppose some extra-terrestrials have landed somewhere on Earth and have set up a station that broadcasts a ray that is causing the phenomenon. |
| gram v. | 1950 Frownzy Florgels in Other Worlds Science Stories Oct. 33/2 ‘We’ll all focus our thoughts through the Book of Florgels.’ And he held the book out for them to focus on. He voyed his plan; they would all focus on the book the thought of their group, just as it was; he would gram the thought, two-way, to the most distant galaxy they knew of and attune it to a single mind there, if there turned out to be one. |
| light-hour n. | 1945 Waveries in Astounding Science Fiction Jan. 136/1 If a broadcasting station sends out a program of one second’s duration, the length of the wave carrying that program is one light-second, or 186,270 miles. A half-hour program is on a continuous wave, as it were, one half light-hour long, and so on. |
| little green man n. | 1949 Mouse in Thrilling Wonder Stories June 91/1 ‘Don’t know what they have in mind unless to bomb the park, people and all, if little green men come out of that thing with ray guns and start killing everybody. Then the bombers could finish off whoever’s left.’ But no little green men came out of the cylinder. |
| mother ship n. | 1944 Arena in Astounding Science-Fiction June 94/1 The scouter, under automatic control, was already entering the hatch of the mother-ship. The grapples pulled it into its individual lock, and a moment later a buzzer indicated that the lock was air-filled. |
| neutronium n. | 1949 Gateway to Darkness in Super Science Stories Nov. 22/1 It negates the force that holds the electrons to the nucleus. In effect, it collapses matter into neutronium. |
| ray n. | 1950 Honeymoon in Hell in Galaxy Science Fiction Nov. 14/2 Suppose some extra-terrestrials have landed somewhere on Earth and have set up a station that broadcasts a ray that is causing the phenomenon. |
| rocketeer n. | 1948 What Mad Universe in Startling Stories Sept. 14/1 Well, fellow space-pilots, tonight—the night I’m writing this, not the night you’re reading it—is the big night, the big night, and the ole Rocketeer was out there to see it. And see it he did, that flash of light on the dark of the moon that marked the landing of the first successful missile launched through space by man. |
| scouter n. | 1944 Arena in Astounding Science-Fiction June 71/1 In the little one-man scouter, outside the orbit of Pluto, scouting a scant million miles to one side of the Earth Armada. |
| space dog n. | 1948 What Mad Universe in Startling Stories Sept. v. 30/1 Hands touched him lightly, and a strongly alcoholic breath almost made him gasp as the man groped past him. There was a chuckle in the blackness. [‘]Just an old space dog on a spree,’ the voice said. |
| spacer n. 2 | 1951 Something Green in S. Moskowitz Exploring Other Worlds (1969) 138 Only one spacer had landed here before McGarry’s, as far as the records showed, and it had never taken off again. He was looking for it now; he'd been looking for it systematically for the five years he'd been here. If he found it, it might—just barely might—contain, intact, some of the electronic tubes which had been smashed in the crash landing of his own spacer. |
| system-wide adj. | 1953 And Gods Laughed in Tops in Science Fiction Fall 54/1 And you’re out of radio range except for the usual once-a-terrestrial-day, system-wide newscasts. |
| system-wide adj. | 1943 Daymare in Thrilling Wonder Stories Fall 29/1 Under a perfectly democratic government, component part of a stable system-wide organization of planets, there was no need for such activity. |
| teleport v. 2 | 1949 What Mad Universe ix. 131 Into Mekky also was built the ability to teleport—to transfer himself instantaneously through space without the necessity of having a spaceship to ride in. |
| terrene adj. 2 | 1946 Placet Is Crazy Place in Astounding Science-Fiction May 119/2 It boils down to this; Argyle I is terrene matter and Argyle II is contraterrene, or negative matter. |
| Terrestrial n. 2 | 1948 Knock in Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec. 139/1 The rest of his life, or as the Zan had quaintly expressed it, for-ev-er…. The Zan had learned to speak Terrestrial English in a matter of hours but they persisted in separating syllables. |
| thought wave n. | 1960 Earthmen Bearing Gifts in Galaxy June 148/1 Dhar Ry sat alone in his room, meditating. From outside the door he caught a thought wave equivalent to a knock, and, glancing at the door, he willed it to slide open. It opened. ‘Enter, my friend,’ he said. He could have projected the idea telepathically; but with only two persons present, speech was more polite. |
| viewplate n. | 1942 Star Mouse in Planet Stories Spring 34/1 He took the readings from the dials about the viewplate, and hurled them as thoughts against the psychocoil of the computer, then waited while that most complicated of machines digested all the factors and prepared the answer. |
| warp v. | 1946 Placet is a Crazy Place in Astounding Science Fiction May 129/1 The Ark…would warp through space to a point a safe distance outside the Argyle I-II system and come in on rocket power. |
| warp drive n. | [1948 What Mad Universe in Startling Stories Sept. 34/1 An American scientist at Harvard had discovered the spacewarp drive. ] |