Fear is the brother of hate.

Ethics change with technology.

SF isn't a genre; SF is the matrix in which genres are embedded, and because the SF field is never going in any one direction at any one time, there is hardly a way to cut it off.

The human species really could have faced global thermonuclear war. During seventy years of Cold War we grew used to it.

Everything starts as somebody's daydream.

In the world of words the imagination is one of the forces of nature.

In hindsight it may even seem inevitable that a socialist society will starve when it runs out of capitalists.

You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.

We learn only to ask more questions.

It's very difficult for a black man to get out of South-Central Los Angeles, and get out civilized....The only men I know who have escaped, all began reading Robert Heinlein at age ten.

One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better.

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.

One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.

Intense interest in any subject is indispensable if you're really going to excel in it.

If we want unity, we must all be unifiers. If we want accountability, each of us must be accountable for all we do.

As our own peace of mind grows, so the atmosphere around us becomes more peaceful.

We are possessed by the things we possess. When I like an object, I always give it to someone. It isn't generosity-it's only because I want others to be enslaved by objects, not me.

No one can pray and worry at the same time.

...in all the woods and forests, God did not create a single leaf the same as any other... People go against nature because they lack the courage to be different.

I want people to know that movie stars live a normal, middle-class life.

I think you die the way you live.