The human species really could have faced global thermonuclear war. During seventy years of Cold War we grew used to it.

Ethics change with technology.

SF isn't a genre; SF is the matrix in which genres are embedded, and because the SF field is never going in any one direction at any one time, there is hardly a way to cut it off.

Everything starts as somebody's daydream.

In the world of words the imagination is one of the forces of nature.

In hindsight it may even seem inevitable that a socialist society will starve when it runs out of capitalists.

You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.

We learn only to ask more questions.

It's very difficult for a black man to get out of South-Central Los Angeles, and get out civilized....The only men I know who have escaped, all began reading Robert Heinlein at age ten.

One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better.

The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.

So go love someone that wants to love you back. Whoever that lad is will be one lucky person.

Deadwood did not kill itself!

Ever since I was little I really loved boyish clothes - I had a real obsession with strict clothes, like uniforms. They really got me going.

To be is not a choice, but the way you feel about it certainly is.

Be reasonable with the students and make sure they see the logic in what we're doing.

My first job as a kid was going from door to door selling Christmas cards, to raise money for my grandmother's hip replacement. Because, you know... You break it, you buy it.

Throw dirt on me, and grow a wild flower

You have to learn to interrupt because you aren't going to get called on.

To be good, we must do good; and by doing good we take a sure means of being good, as the use and exercise of the muscles increase their power.

And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe. And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale.