I did that for 40 years or more. I never had any writer's block. I got up in the morning, sat down at the typewriter - now, computer - lit up a cigarette.

The science fiction method is dissection and reconstruction.

A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.

You can't really predict the future. All you can do is invent it.

My old English buddy, John Rackham, wrote and told me what made science fiction different from all other kinds of literature - science fiction is written according to the science fiction method.

My first thought was always a cigarette. It still is, but I haven't cheated.

It's clear that science and science fiction have overlapping populations.

What were we doing here? Traveling hundreds or thousands of light-years, to break our hearts?

That's what life is, just one learning experience after another, and when you're through with all the learning experiences you graduate and what you get for a diploma is, you die.

For someone to be taken seriously it was valuable to have the appearance of someone who deserved to be taken seriously.

I'm doing a book, 'Chasing Science,' about the pleasures of science as a spectator sport.

I hate coming out of conversations without learning anything.

Look ... first and foremost, I'm a scientist. That means it's my responsibility to make observations and gather evidence before forming a hypothesis, not vice versa.

The world reflects back to you how much you value yourself.

I have often thought that the aim of port is to give you a good and durable hangover, so that during the next day you should be reminded of the splendid occasion the night before.

How good is God! How sweet his yoke!

If you're not on your 'A' game in our workouts every day, you're going to get absolutely smoked.

They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. . . . As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

People who avoid all criticism fail. It's destructive criticism we need to avoid, not criticism in all forms.

In the United States, the working class are Democrats. The middle class are Republicans. The upper class are Communists.