The Berserkers have been with me for about forty years, and we're not done yet.

I don't know why a computer game can't be an art form just as a puppet show or an opera is. I'm still interested in computer games as something I would like to work on someday.

Actually ideas are everywhere. It's the paperwork, that is, sitting down and thinking them into a coherent story, trying to find just the right words, that can and usually does get to be labor.

My gut feeling is that paper and ink are going to be with us for a long time yet, and in substantial quantities, though certainly books are now going to be available in other forms.

Probably all the books I've ever written have been efforts to define the boundaries of humanity.

More immediately, I'm currently working on another Dracula in which there will be connections with ancient Egypt. That's about as far as I want to go in commenting on current work.

If people ask me for the ingredients of success, I say one is talent, two is stubbornness or determination, and third is sheer luck. You have to have two out of the three. Any two will probably do.

I started writing seriously about 1960, at the fairly advanced age of 30.

Only towards the end of this process are any of the chapters in fully readable condition, a state of affairs that used to alarm my wife. But Joan's got used to it.

Research is of considerable importance in certain fields, such as science and history.

I finally decided one day, reading science fiction magazines of the time, I could do at least as well as some of these people are doing. So I finally made a serious effort.

A dark thought will never lead you to the light because darkness is terrified of light.

Feel guilty. Mourn this. But move on. Don't let it destroy you. Forgive yourself.

[V]igor of government is essential to the security of liberty.

Also, there are seats in the diner that always fall off the table. If you have a scene where you're packing up at the end of the day and putting them on the table, they just slide off.

If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x times y is less than y

In spirituals, the talk of heaven and deliverance was code for a better life. 'Crossing the River Jordan' was code, of course, for escaping to freedom.

We, as human beings, should wish to be loved and embraced for our character, respected and relied on for our courage, and trusted for our conscience.

Why do there have to be men like that, men who enjoy another man's dying?

Well, we've been lucky devils both And there is no need for a pledge or oath To bind our lovely friendship fast, By firmer stuff Close bound enough.

We have found ways to capture, kill and market ocean wildlife on an unprecedented scale. It's an absolute catastrophe.