A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content.

— Theodore Sturgeon

As far as hypnosis is concerned, I had a very serious problem when I was in my twenties. I encountered a man who later became the president of the American Society of Medical Hypnosis. He couldn't hypnotize me.

— Theodore Sturgeon

Does anyone ask a painter -- even the painter himself -- why he paints? Now me, I painted... used to... whatever I saw that was beautiful. It had to be beautiful to me, through and through, before I would paint it. And I used to be a pretty simple fellow, and found many completely beautiful things to paint. But the older you get, the fewer completely beautiful things you see. Every flower has a brown spot somewhere, and a hippogriff has evil laughter. So at some point in his development an artist has to paint, not what he sees (which is what I've always done) but the beauty in what he sees. Most painters, I think, cross this line early; I'm crossing it late.("To Here and the Easel", 1954)

— Theodore Sturgeon

Had I been screaming, screaming, in some way? I with my life so separate and well-ordered in the company of my green things and my sky and the animals of the hillside? I shouted - it was a demand - I shouted and shook him: "God body!" And as usual he understood me perfectly: 'You was lonesome,' he said.

— Theodore Sturgeon

He slept like an animal, well and lightly, faced in the opposite direction from that of a man; for a man going to sleep is about to escape into it while animals are prepared to escape out of it.

— Theodore Sturgeon

Inner space is so much more interesting, because outer space is so empty.

— Theodore Sturgeon

I thumped her on the back, picked her up and dropped her on top of her dungarees. “Put them pants on,” I said, “and be a man.” She did, but she cried quietly until I shook her and said gently, “Stop it now. I didn’t carry on like that when I was a little girl.” I got into my clothes and dumped her into the bow of the canoe and shoved off. All the way back to the cabin I forced her to play one of our pet games. I would say something—anything—and she would try to say something that rhymed with it. Then it would be her turn. She had an extraordinary rhythmic sense, and an excellent ear. I started off with “We’ll go home and eat our dinners.”“An’ Lord have mercy on us sinners,” she cried. Then, “Let’s see you find a rhyme for ‘month’!”“I bet I’ll do it … jut ht thigh on the,” I replied. “I guess I did it then, by crack.”“Course you did, but then you’re wacky. Top that, mister funny-looking’!” I pretended I couldn’t, mainly because I couldn’t, and she soundly kicked my shin as a penance. By the time we reached the cabin she was her usual self, and I found myself envying the resilience of youth. And she earned my undying respect by saying nothing to Any about the afternoon’s events, even when Any looked us over and said, “Just look at you two filthy kids! What have you been doing—swimming in the bayou?”“Daddy splashed me,” said Patty promptly.“And you had to splash him back. Why did he splash you?”“ ’Cause I spit mud through my teeth at him to make him mad,” said my outrageous child.“Patty!”“Mea culpa,” I said, hanging my head. “ ’Twas I who spit the mud.” Anjy threw up her hands. “Heaven knows what sort of woman Patty’s going to grow up to be,” she said, half angrily.”A broad-minded and forgiving one like her lovely mother,” I said quickly.”Nice work, bud,” said Patty. Anjy laughed. “Outnumbered again. Come in and feed the face.

— Theodore Sturgeon

I went back every evening, after work, for nearly a year. I learned the meaning of the cud of a leaf and the glisten of wet pebbles, and the special significance of curves and angles. A great deal of the writing was unwritten. Plot three dots on a graph and join them; you now have a curve with certain characteristics. Extend that curve while maintaining the characteristics, and it has meaning, up where no dots were plotted. In just this way I learned to extend the curve of a grass-blade and of a protruding root, of the bent edges of wetness on a drying headstone. I quit smoking, so I could sharpen my sense of smell, because the scent of earth after a rain has a clarifying effect on graveyard reading, as if the page were made whiter and the ink darker. I began to listen to the wind, and to the voices of birds and small animals, insects and people; because to the educated ear, every sound is filtered through the story written on graves, and becomes a part of it.("The Graveyard Reader")

— Theodore Sturgeon

Just think about it," he said softly. "You can do practically anything. You can have practically everything. And none of it will keep you from being alone.""Shut up... Everybody's alone." He nodded. "But some people learn how to live with it.

— Theodore Sturgeon

Let me tell you something: you can not write good fiction about ideas. You can only write good fiction about people.

— Theodore Sturgeon