Ideally, I'd like every issue to include a diverse group of stories that meet the qualifications sketched above, but covering a wide range of specific matter and flavour.

It's most presumptuous to believe we already know all the answers and will never get any more big surprises.

Don't mistake a good setup for a satisfying conclusion - many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to begin.

Resist the temptation to try to use dazzling style to conceal weakness of substance.

Blaming society makes it awfully easy for a person of weak character to shrug off his own responsibility for his actions.

It's easy to imagine ways the future can be ugly and depressing. It's harder, but more worthwhile, to imagine plausible ways we can make it better.

As for sticking strictly to presently known science, I will simply point out that we have already experienced at least two major revolutions in science in this century alone.

There may be something to the suggestion about the pace of technological change intimidating writers, though - it's been awfully hard to keep ahead of real developments.

I think the rising and falling popularity of areas like hard SF and far-future SF is, to a considerable extent, the same as any other fashion.

And, of course, some SF is set close enough to here and now that Anglo and European do apply. Since many of the writers come from those backgrounds, so does much of the fiction.

This means I must pay close attention to the writing, but equally so to the scientific background - which sometimes means doing fairly involved calculations.

The poor, I am told, are kind to each other but that is because they have nothing to lose, ' he said. 'The rich cannot afford to be.

Those who do not attempt to appear more than they are but are simply themselves, stand out as remarkable and are the only ones who truly make a difference in this world.

A poem is about something the way a cat is about the house.

Whoever said diamonds were a girl's best friend sure hasn't read a good book.

The dynamics of film directing and fashion design - in the ways that I've done it - were not dissimilar.

I don't think you should sit around and wait for people to give you an opportunity to express yourself or do your work, or whatever. Actors have to be producers and writers have to be producers.

The thousand mysteries around us would not trouble but interest us, if only we had cheerful, healthy hearts.

My stomach lurched, an appetizer before the full portion of heartache I had a feeling was going to be served at some point soon.

It is a hard but good law of fate, that as every evil, so every excessive power, wears itself out.

It's impossible to recreate music from the past. Music always states the truth.