She had called in the debt that parents owe a child for bringing her, unasked, into a strange world. One should never make an offer without knowing full well what will happen if it is accepted.

My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.

We already live a very long time for mammals, getting three times as many heartbeats as a mouse or elephant. It never seems enough though, does it?

When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.

My education and background thoroughly inform my writing.

Anyone who wants simple, pat stories should buy another author's product. The real universe ain't that way, and neither are my fictive ones.

The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal.

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.

I would normally never set out to write a trilogy.

But honestly, if you do a rigorous survey of my work, I'll bet you'll find that biology is a theme far more often than physical science.

In the book, America had already been weakened by bio terror plagues before waves of selfish violence took down the rest. But the real enemy was the kind of male human being who nurses fantasies of violent glory at the expense of his fellow citizens.

Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses?

Predicting has a spotty record in science fiction. I've had some failures. On the other hand, I also predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of fundamentalist Islam... and I'm not happy to be right in all of those cases.

Above all, TRIBES is fun, and even kind of sexy... in that every round features an Opportunity for Reproduction, which is the main aim of the game, as it is in most of Nature.

Self-righteous people can talk themselves into forgetting they are part of a civilization. They can then feed on that culture, bringing it down. It's happened many times in the past. It could happen to us.

When I begin a book, I inevitably discover many things along the way, about the characters, their past histories and the political intrigues that surround them. This discovery process is vital, and I would not prejudice it by deciding too much in advance.

I find humans tremendously interesting.

Only a knowledgeable, empowered and vocal citizenry can perform well in democracy.

Fortunately, human beings are remarkably diverse models to work from.

There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet, several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives.

I like to be surprised. Fresh implications and plot twists erupt as a story unfolds. Characters develop backgrounds, adding depth and feeling. Writing feels like exploring.

One of the rules I try to follow is that normal people are going to be involved even in heroic events.

But it is a delightful challenge to try to depict interesting aliens.

Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that, head-on.

She had called in the debt that parents owe a child for bringing her, unasked, into a strange world. One should never make an offer without knowing full well what will happen if it is accepted.

Only people with full stomachs become environmentalists.

Self awareness is probably overrated. A complex, self regulating system doesn't need it in order to be successful, or even smart.

All we're getting from the Democratic majority in Congress and from this White House is more bailouts, more spending, more planned stimulus, more deficits and debt, and the American people have had it.

The surest way to return to the people's business is to listen to the people themselves: We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt.

When you take a look at the problems our country is facing, debt is No. 1. The math is downright scary and the credit markets aren't going to keep on giving us cheap rates.

Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to the 9/11 Commission members for their valuable service and important recommendations to improve homeland security.

To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible.

We have managed to acquire $13 trillion of debt on our balance sheet. In my view we have nothing to show for it. We haven't invested in our roads, our bridges, our waste-water systems, our sewer systems. We haven't even maintained the assets that our parents and grandparents built for us.

Right now, a majority of the debt is owed to foreign interests, Japan being the largest purchaser of government debt today, soon to be surpassed by China as the number one purchaser of our debt in this Nation.

Debt is such a powerful tool, it is such a useful tool, it's much better than colonialism ever was because you can keep control without having an army, without having a whole administration.

Many students graduate from college and professional schools, including those of social work, nursing, medicine, teaching and law, with crushing debt burdens.

I talked to a lot of employers who just are, are fearful of what's coming next out of Washington. It's all the spending, it's all the debt. It's their national energy tax, they want to call it cap and trade - more mandates, higher costs, more taxes. Their healthcare bill - more mandates, higher costs, higher taxes.

It took the first 204 years of our Nation's history to accumulate $1 trillion in debt. And now we are doing that every 2 or 3 years.

What matters to me is that I do what I think is right and I see, I'm a numbers guy, that's my attitude. I know we have a debt tsunami coming, we are bankrupting this country and I'm in a position where I can actually advance ideas to prevent that from happening. That's exactly what I should be doing.

I owe a debt of gratitude to two other living Justices. Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg paved the way for me and so many other women in my generation. Their pioneering lives have created boundless possibilities for women in the law. I thank them for their inspiration and also for the personal kindnesses they have shown me.

If you look internationally over the last 50 years there have been improvements in the third world, but in the last 20 years the reverse has happened, with debt crises and increased poverty.

The majority of them give the impression of being men who have been drafted into the job during a period of martial law and are only waiting for the end of the emergency to get back to a really congenial occupation such as slum demolition or debt collecting.

After adding trillions to the debt on big-government policies most Americans didn't ask for and which we couldn't afford, Democratic leaders say they need more money, which they intend to take from small business, even though small businesses create the majority of new jobs.

A true lover always feels in debt to the one he loves.

Poets, like friends to whom you are in debt, you hate.

Ten million dollars after I'd become a star I was deeply in debt.

Our debt is out of control. What was a fiscal challenge is now a fiscal crisis. We cannot deny it; instead we must, as Americans, confront it responsibly. And that is exactly what Republicans pledge to do.

The great increase in longevity has produced a surge in the desire to accumulate assets for retirement. It has outpaced the ability of the private sector to produce assets, so we need a larger government debt.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.