And that's another piece of advice I'll give junior writers; when you get to the point where they take you to lunch, let the editor suggest where to go.

In any ethical situation, the thing you want least to do is probably the right action.

You see, I used to do a certain amount of market research by going to the local drugstore and seeing what the truck drivers would put up. Now it's all just copies from the latest best-seller list and damn little of anything else.

One the other hand, the publishing trend is ghastly, isn't it? Two hundred and something distributors are now down to 10 or 12? And what's the recruiting drive?

There were probably, what, 300 science-fiction members in the SFWA, of whom probably a hundred were active members in the sense that they were selling something every year, or every couple years.

I have more information in one place than anybody in the world.

The hard part of writing at all is sitting your ass down in a chair and writing it. There's always something better to do, like I've got an interview, sharpening the pencils, trimming the roses. There's always something better to do. Going to a writer's club?

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

And in down times it shakes a lot of the bad SF out, a lot the stuff that was bought for literary reasons, which is neither entertaining nor great literature.

Heinlein never had a best-seller. Even, I think, with Stranger in a Strange Land, I don't think it was actually on the New York Times best seller list.

Because Tom Doherty and people like that are not stupid. If they could have streamlined their operation more to get more money out of it, they would have done it. It's not like they're a bunch of idiots.

I think it takes about a million words to make a writer. I mean that you're going to throw away.

We're basically after Joe's beer money, and Joe likes his beer, so you better make sure that what you give him is at least as pleasurable to him as having his six-pack of beer would be.

The importance of information is directly proportional to its improbability.

We do a hard fantasy as well as hard science fiction, and I think I probably single-handedly recreated military science fiction. It was dead before I started working in it.

You no longer have much in the way of knowing what to do in a big, epic novel about the future, because nobody knows what the hell is going to happen.

Somebody's always getting me to come lecture to their writing class, and I don't talk about writing at all, I talk about the business of making a living at this racket.

Asimov was the reason why we changed some rules in the SFWA, and I'm not convinced we changed it for the best.

I started in this racket in the early '70s, and when I was president of the Science Fiction Writers of America, of which I was like the sixth president, I was the first one nobody ever heard of.

And that's another piece of advice I'll give junior writers; when you get to the point where they take you to lunch, let the editor suggest where to go.

The Aztecs believe they started up in what's now New Mexico, and wandered for 10,000 years before they got down into where they are now, in Mexico City. That's a weird legend.

So, I guess the answer to your question is very few people can bring off a novel of the future because it's just so damn hard to make it look like the future.

Write a lot. And finish what you write. Don't join writer's clubs and go sit around having coffee reading pieces of your manuscript to people. Write it. Finish it. I set those rules up years ago, and nothing's changed.

And meanwhile, the storytellers like me and Anderson, Silverberg... we tell stories. People like them. They want to know how it comes out, they want to know what the ending is.

In any bureaucracy the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence and sometimes are eliminated entirely.

In any ethical situation the thing you want least to do is probably the right action.

Women don't like advice. They don't want you to fix their problems, they just want you to listen.

I don't think a reporter should give advice or make predictions.

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

No enemy is worse than bad advice.

I'm not in the business of becoming famous. And that's the advice I give to younger aspiring actors. Work onstage and do the little roles. In the end it's not important to be seen. It's important to do. There's a lot of disappointment in this business, but my family keeps me grounded.

Listen kid, take my advice, never hate a song that has sold half a million copies.

My advice to young film-makers is this: don't follow trends, start them!

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

All of our affairs, since the union of crowns, have been managed by the advice of English ministers, and the principal offices of the kingdom filled with such men, as the court of England knew would be subservient to their designs.

To offer a man unsolicited advice is to presume that he doesn't know what to do or that he can't do it on his own.

But I try not to become preoccupied with that because with whatever direction I follow, with whatever advice I've followed or not followed, It's landed me in New York, in a very beautiful hotel, talking to people about something that I love. So I ain't that far off.

If it's free, it's advice; if you pay for it, it's counseling; if you can use either one, it's a miracle.

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is really advice to myself, a reminder to myself not to avoid change or uncertainty, but to go with it, to surf into change.

I never take advice from anyone more messed up than I am.

What advice do I tell my grandson? I listen to him.

It is not unprofessional to give free legal advice, but advertising that the first visit will be free is a bit like a fox telling chickens he will not bite them until they cross the threshold of the hen house.

This character in the film, these things that he says which sound like advice and wise things, they are very common for Orientals. It's all the tradition.

Never give advice in a crowd.

Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.

When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.

I counseled many returning missionaries. I interviewed 1,700 missionaries all over the world. My advice to them is that you should study and prepare for your life's work in a field that you enjoy.

His advice to me is basically to just love what you do and don't let the fear of failure stop you.