So I'll write it, and then I'll find out that I actually wrote something that is utterly useless. You can't use it in the story and it doesn't fit. So I just throw it away. I've done that countless times.

Right now I'm so old that if I had a big gush of money, I don't know what I'd do with it. I don't travel anymore. I don't need anything, don't want anything. I'd give it to my son, I guess, and let him enjoy it.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, because I read and read and read. I read everything.

I was a carpenter for a time and everybody watches what you do.

Sometimes some of these little side excursions are useful and I manage to fit them in the book somewhere.

I'd never been published when I was young.

But I'm so slow on it because I find it terribly hard writing blind on computers. The computer speaks to me, but it's just so slow, I'm so terribly slow using it.

A reader is not supposed to be aware that someone's written the story. He's supposed to be completely immersed, submerged in the environment.

I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell.

There was a writer in the '20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn't tell you what it was.

I do read books. I suppose it's more or less the same thing, but at least I'm alone and I'm an individual. I can stop anytime I want, which I frequently do.

I haven't been to a movie since somebody gave me free tickets to Star Wars, which I went to.

I never worked in an office in my life.

I thought that automobiles were going to have mufflers and go fast and airplanes were going to fly fast.

I haven't sold to the movies. In other words, I haven't gotten any enormous checks yet.

It seems to limit you; when you're working in an office, you're a creature in a small cell under somebody's supervision and surveillance.

But I've sure worked at jobs where I have been under inspection.

I never made lots of money at it, but I sold enough.

This flattery has been rather slow in coming. I think all of sudden late in life now I'm getting some credit for what I've done. Which is gratifying, but it's kind of a little late.

I worked for half a cent a word. I'm not a fast writer to begin with, so for the first few years I had do other things.

I was an omnivore at reading, so that everything I ever read contributed.

But Roy Rockwood, it was science fiction for the sake of science fiction.

I don't read other science fiction. I don't read any at all.

In fact, almost every job you get somebody watching you.

As I mentioned, I was a carpenter for a time.

The story was such that I couldn't make a graceful ending and then make a graceful new beginning. I could have, but I didn't want to. So, it isn't the most graceful way of writing a story. This new story is, I think, is pretty good stuff. I'm pleased with it anyway.

Then there was Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote for Weird Tales and who had a wild imagination. He wasn't a very talented writer, but his imagination was wonderful.

So I'll write it, and then I'll find out that I actually wrote something that is utterly useless. You can't use it in the story and it doesn't fit. So I just throw it away. I've done that countless times.

But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me.

I got done writing Ports of Call and suddenly realized I have far too much material for the book.

Well, I think everything I've ever read contributes to the background from which I write.

Happiness is fugitive dissatisfaction and boredom are real.

Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience.

Sugar leaves you stranded; I make sure I have the proper amount of protein before I work out.

When I'm done with something, I'm done. I don't go back and listen to and pine for my old albums, or the Lollapalooza days, or 'Psalm 69' selling millions of records. Maybe I'm really just getting old and mellow.

It takes courage to say goodbye. To stare at a thing lost and know it is gone forever. Some tears are iron forged.

The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power.

Now it is quite clear to me that there are no solid spheres in the heavens, and those that have been devised by the authors to save the appearances, exist only in the imagination.

My kids are really easy. I often worry that they're too easy to deal with. They're really nice people.

Just making the crowd laugh is not really doing things for me anymore. That's just knowing how to kill; I've learned how to kill - but also learned when a crowd's laughter is meaningful.

The city needs a car like a fish needs a bicycle.

In the language of politics, there is only one translation for the phrase 'hope and change,' to wit: 'big, fat government.'

Comedy often comes at the expense of others, and to do that smartly, you don't want to make fun of vulnerable people. You want to make fun of people in power, and so you need to really understand the dynamics of power.

Pick yourself up when youre feeling down. No one else is likely to.

I'm actually rather orderly, although the way that I write is not.

You cease to move into yourself, away from others. You give up your antagonism. You begin to move toward others in love. God moved toward you in gracious, outgoing love, and you move toward others in that same outgoing love.

People love talking about the banality of evil and the fact that ordinary people do bad things. I actually want to stay away from that.

At times, I feel overwhelmed and my depression leads me into darkness.

You'd be surprised. Girls like sensitive, namby-pamby guys.