Nuclear weapons are intrinsically neither moral nor immoral, though they are more prone to immoral use than most weapons.

Risk-taking is the essence of innovation.

Because of new technologies, new wealth, new conditions of domestic life and of international relations, unprecedented criteria and issues are coming up for national decision.

Deterrence itself is not a preeminent value; the primary values are safety and morality.

Authority is not power; that's coercion. Authority is not knowledge; that's persuasion, or seduction. Authority is simply that the author has the right to make a statement and to be heard.

My guess is that nuclear weapons will be used sometime in the next hundred years, but that their use is much more likely to be small and limited than widespread and unconstrained.

I'm against ignorance. I'm against sloppy, emotional thinking. I'm against fashionable thinking. I am against the whole cliché of the moment.

Nuclear war is such an emotional subject that many people see the weapons themselves as the common enemy of humanity.

The objective of nuclear-weapons policy should not be solely to decrease the number of weapons in the world, but to make the world safer - which is not necessarily the same thing.

Human and moral factors must always be considered. They must never be missing from policies and from public discussion.

A total nuclear freeze is counterproductive - especially now, when technology is rapidly changing and the Soviets have some important strategic advantages.

I think that when in doubt about the truth of an issue, it's safer and in better taste to select the least numerous of the adversaries.

...someone ought to invent a tool, a kind of plane to shave the lies away from stories and deception away from memories. I'm a collector of shavings.

I don’t talk about my personal life so they [the media] had to make one up for me.

In algorithms, as in life, persistence usually pays off.

The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.

It appeared as if I had invited the audience into the water with me, and it conveyed the sensation that being in there was absolutely delicious

I know how to write stories that are accessible to younger readers, and sophisticated enough for older ones. I'm not a big fan of the all ages label, but I keep a wider audience in mind.

Those who stand on their toes are not steady.

I'd like to adopt an older child, maybe 5 years old.

Solitude is an excellent laboratory in which to observe the extent to which manners and habits are conditioned by others.