Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that, head-on.

You don't have conversations with microprocessors. You tell them what to do, then helplessly watch the disaster when they take you literally!

When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.

The village is coming back, like it or not.

In all of history, we have found just one cure for error—a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism.

Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses?

If you believe you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego.

The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal.

My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.

But honestly, if you do a rigorous survey of my work, I'll bet you'll find that biology is a theme far more often than physical science.

God answers all prayers, but sometimes his answer is 'no'! And you may become upset because he said no. But open up your eyes and look around at the things he said yes to.

Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.

God in His providence hasn't called us to watch history, but to shape history by praying in His Name.

We are so not breaking out the violins and pity partying.

Presidents, whether things are good or bad, get the blame. I understand that.

It's at the core of the Catholic faith, and to imagine how we are going to succeed in our country unless we have committed family life, a child-centered family system, is hard to imagine.

But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it's fatal not to go through with it.

The sand stretched out gray and ghostlike and illuminated, a column of light leading forward. It was like something a dead person would see, a tunnel leading toward heaven.

Doing a job badly and then getting someone in to sort it out can be much more expensive than getting someone in to do the job properly in the first place.

Great ideas can come from anywhere. There are no titles around an idea.