I like the Beatles, of course, but that's when I grew up.

You can also make explicit certain social problems which, again, would be prejudged or not encountered at all in real life, because people have set up defenses against it. Fantasy allows you to get past defenses.

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

One of my degrees was a science degree in biology.

I was writing fiction, but not finishing fiction.

I had, of course, no model for that sort of woman being married, but I can make that up as I go along.

But in fantasy, you can make a complete break, and you can put people in a situation where they are confronted with things that they would not confront in the real world.

Now my mother, interestingly enough, was not a feminist in her own mind.

Having a mother who had been an aeronautical engineer convinced me that more things should be open to women.

I like the Beatles, of course, but that's when I grew up.

In a novel, I could submerge my ego in a character's and let his perceptions take over.

I can become very emotional about math, although I'm not that good at it.

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

I actually feel that the different kinds of stories come out of different parts of my brain.

When I was quite young, she was working in a hardware store, so I grew up knowing about hardware.

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

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

Other people, including me, have written books with main characters who were old and rich. Or old and brilliant. Old sages, old wizards, old rich people.

No, but a cello is the perfect string bass for an accordion. Works with it beautifully.

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

When a person responds emotionally to intellectual things, or emotionally only to traditional emotional things - I find that an interesting break between myself and some other writers and fans.

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.

It's hard to hold the focus that strongly on a single character for that long.

My personal feeling about science fiction is that it's always in some way connected to the real world, to our everyday world.

I used to not back down from a challenge.

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

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

No but a cello is the perfect string bass for an accordion. Works with it beautifully.

Fantasy allows you to get past defenses.

But in fantasy you can make a complete break and you can put people in a situation where they are confronted with things that they would not confront in the real world.

The best things in life sometimes happen spontaneously.

I was very influenced by The Magic Mountain. It's a book that had a huge impact on me. I loved that as a shape for a novel: put a bunch of people in a beautiful place, give them all tuberculosis, make them all stay in a fur sleeping bag for several years and see what happens.

I was always a storyteller. I just didn't know it. I never shared the stories I made up inside my head when I was growing up. I never wrote them down, either. But I can't remember a time when they weren't there.

I decided to become a surgeon named Bernie who writes books and gives seminars to teach people what he has learned and is still learning about how to deal with life's difficulties.

A lot of times nerds are really artists listening to the beat of another drummer.

Open all closed minds with the key to understanding.

I'm very sensitive to the English language. I studied the dictionary obsessively when I was a kid and collect old dictionaries. Words, I think, are very powerful and they convey an intention.

A lot of guys try to mingle with me because of who I am. If I encounter a guy with a clean heart, I will go by my instincts. I guess my man won't be from the film industry.

Actually, I always dreamed about getting a gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle in Olympic swimming. I always thought that would be the epic award in sports to get.

Considering the sense of powerlessness that such a state of affairs would bring about to have people floating in a pool of mysterious question marks seems like a minor sin.

I mean, price is price. It's just where you want to spend your money.

The irony is that 'looking down on everybody else' is a violation of the law of love, which, according to Jesus, is the absolute essence of righteousness.

I hated school, didn't like the discipline.

Jesus sacrificed His life so that we may enter Heaven through Him. That is such a powerful sacrifice He set aside His diety to be flesh on Earth and without doing any wrong He was killed and His blood was shed for us.

The whole atmosphere of the book, the tone of 'The Hobbit,' is of a kid's adventure story, told in the first person by Tolkien, who is introducing young people to the notion of Middle-earth. A lot of it is very light-hearted.

I run from Horatio Street down just past Battery Park City and back. It's amazing to run and see the Statue of Liberty and the ferries coming in. People think if you're not near Central Park, there's nowhere to go, but there's a whole ecosystem happening down here.

When you listen to radio and hear the same 20 or 25 songs, you start hunting down your CD's. Waylon Jennings' records were always around to listen to.

I think most people want to be remembered with the causes they feel worthwhile and helped promote.