Robert Aickman

Plaque at 11 Gower Street, London

Robert Fordyce Aickman (27 June 1914 – 26 February 1981) was an English writer and conservationist. As a writer, he is best known for his supernatural fiction, which he described as "strange stories".

Quotes

Short fiction

Growing Boys (1977)

All page numbers are from the reprint in Terry Carr (ed.), Year's Finest Fantasy (1978), 1st printing

• She was almost glowing with resolution. She realized that to display moral qualities demands practice, just as much as intellectual and manual qualities.
  • p. 231

• She had rather looked down on such shops and on such clothes, but that had been ignorance and the wrong kind of sophistication.
  • p. 240

• I don’t spend all day reading the newspapers. It can get hold of you as poisonously as the television, if you once let it.
  • p. 242

• Upon the passage to truth, cross-currents are to be expected.
  • p. 257

The Wine-Dark Sea (1988)

• The idea came to him, not for the first time, that most of the things which people buy in the belief that they are luxuries are really poor substitutes for luxury.
  • p.27 (Story was first published in 1988. Page numbers are per the Mandarin paperback "The Wine-Dark Sea" (short stories) 1990 Edition.)

• It was, in any case, quite useless, and, like most useless things, useless almost immediately.
  • p.30

• 'I didn't find it in the least difficult,' said Grigg.
  'Those meant to succeed at a thing never do find the thing difficult.'
  'Meant? Meant by whom?'
  'By the life of which they are a part, whether they know it or not.'
  'It is very mystical,' said Grigg.
  • p.36