I'm not too fond of the hard work and the constant battle with self-doubt that goes on when I write, but I figure that's part of the territory.

A lot of us don't want to be quite that serious about world problems. Our life is there to enjoy, not to be an eternal dissident, eternally unhappy with how things are and with the state of mankind.

Action isn’t my forte. I’m an expert on contemplation and mild regret.

I've always thought of absurdism as a French fad I'd like to belong to.

Science fiction is very healthy in its form.

I'm quite influenced in this by one of my heroes, Montaigne, who thought a man's real task was to render as honest an account of himself as he could.

It is a truism throughout the civilized galaxy that when you go to the police, your troubles really begin.

I sell well now in Russia. I remember one signing in Russia some years ago where the bookstore had two strongmen to hold the crowds back.

Once you find you can't walk as far and as fast as you were able, life becomes more complicated.

I'm not so interested any more in how a great deal of science fiction goes. It goes into things like Star Wars and Star Trek which all go excellent in their own way.

Ethical and questions of philosophy interest me a great deal.

The story becomes clearer with time.

Journalism is not a precise science, it's a crude art

To be in the EU, it means to have same rules of... for economy, for social life, to be together in the majority of European countries.

Vladimir Putin wants to become the de facto head of an illiberal, xenophobic, hypernationalist trend in world politics.

...human beings always have and always will seek havens where we are free to be productive and to keep the property we create.

Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.

The likelihood is that any English-speaking skier has more words for different types of snow than any inhabitant of Alaska or Greenland.

I got some very good advice once. That was: You're not talking to a reporter, you're talking to the public. We didn't hide things. They are a little more guarded now.

Few of us are as good as we think we are; none of us are as good as we can be.