Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle science fiction.

You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing.

Imagine a man who stands before a mirror; a stone strikes it, and it falls to ruin all in an instant. And the man learns that he is himself, and not the mirrored man he had believed himself to be.

People don't want other people to be people.

Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real.

Knowledge is soon changed, then lost in the mist, an echo half-heard.

My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.

There is no limit to stupidity. - Space itself is said to be bounded by its own curvature, but stupidity continues beyond infinity.

Ambiguity is necessary in some of my stories, not in all. In those, it certainly contributes to the richness of the story. I doubt that thematic closure is never attainable.

Evolution teaches us the original purpose of language was to ritualize men's threats and curses, his spells to compel the gods; communication came later.

All time exists. That is the truth.... If the future did not exist now, how could we journey toward it? If the past does not exist still, how could we leave it behind?

Where there is no hope, there is Christmas. And where there is no Christmas, there is no hope.

When superstitions enter the world of imagination, then intelligence and science become fiction.

A relationship has to be cultivated. There have to be feelings of love for another first. But then you have to really like the person.

Nice people are often not good people and good people are often not nice people.

Fage does not make great yogurt.

I always find the most depressing stuff most interesting.

I believe you have to nurture your conscience.

I always mistrust everything I see, which an image shows me, because I imagine what is beyond it. And what is beyond an image cannot be known.

There is no rose without thorns.

a deviation from propriety scarcely ever escapes punishment.