"...[S]cience,...is about knowledge. Fiction, on the other hand, is about feeling. Science as such is not a person, and does not have a system of morality built into it, any more than a toaster does. It is only a tool--a tool for actualizing what we desire and defending against what we fear--and like any other tool, it can be used for good or ill. You can build a house with a hammer, and you can use the same hammer to murder your neighbour."
"Literature is an uttering, or outering, of the human imagination. It lets the shadowy forms of thought and feeling--Heaven, Hell, monsters, angels, and all--out into the light, where we can take a good look at them and perhaps come to a better understanding of who we are and what we want, and what the limits to those wants may be. Understanding the imagination is no longer a pastime or even a duty, but a necessity; because increasingly, if we can imagine it, we'll be able to do it.
"Or we'll be able to try it, at least."
--Margaret Atwood, from the essay, "Scientific Romancing," in her collection, Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004 to 2021 (Doubleday/Penguin Random House, 2022.)
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