When I was starting out, I did not do short fiction well, because I kept wanting to write books.

I love biomedical science, I love astronomy, and you can't really do much with those in a fantasy setting.

There are relatively few science fiction or fantasy books with the main character being an old person.

Normal' is a dryer setting.

I regarded drugs as somewhat like rattlesnakes - it's possible to pick one up without getting bit, but why bother?

There is simple ignorance, not knowing, and willful ignorance that refuses to know, that covers the light of knowledge with the dark blanket of bias.

It may be far in the future, but there's some kind of logical way to get from where we are to where the science fiction is.

So when I got out of the military, I went back to school in biology, and earned a biology degree at the University of Texas, and then did some graduate work in it.

My first degree came years before my second. I had wanted to be a physicist, but I flunked calculus.

Hard to be a physics major at Rice University if you have flunked calculus.

I've taught Sunday school, I've sung in the choir, I directed a choir.

It is painful to face the self we know we have never had the integrity to honor and assert.

Given the millions of billions of Earth-like planets, life elsewhere in the Universe without a doubt, does exist. In the vastness of the Universe we are not alone.

Arguing is a game that two can play at. But it is a strange game in that neither opponent ever wins.

Geniuses are people who notice things and connections between things which others haven't noticed. Genius must be a surprise.

You’re just using me for my body.” “You don’t have a body,” I’d remind him. “Throw that in my face.” “Technically, you don’t have a face either.

The grand old Book of God still stands; and this old earth, the more its leaves are turned over and pondered, the more it will sustain and illustrate the Sacred word.

Easy things should be easy, and hard things should be possible.

I know how to behave but sometimes I can't be bothered.

Understanding is the key to true knowledge

My parents are my inspiration. Believe it or not, they're my personal coaches. After every game I still call them and get their take on how I played.