I usually like whatever I've recently finished best.

I usually like whatever I've recently finished best.

I have a kind of standard explanation why, which goes like this: Science fiction is one way of making sense out of a senseless world.

The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive.

The problem and privilege we all have is being alive in this century and able to read this language. It makes any list meaningless except the list of an illiterate.

We didn't have a phone when I was a kid, and I was too shy to smash any public phones, and our town didn't have a pool hall either, so I had to hang out at the public library - and anyway, I told myself stories.

I started writing, or rather, thinking, stories as a child, and at that time the reason was very clear.

Most publishers seem very reluctant to publish short story collections at all; they bring them out in paperback, often disguised as novels.

People have laughed at all great inventors and discoverers.

See, I have no journalism in my background, so I wasn't practised at research or writing non-fiction, nor at handling the truth in a journalistic way. Journalists know when to call a halt and write something, but I kept on looking for answers.

SF has at least the advantage of not depending on preconceptions.

This is mainly because I spend a lot of time writing and so don't have much time to read; I hate to waste that time reading what may turn out to be junk food for the mind, when there's so much real writing to be read.

Whatever I'm reading at the moment seems to influence whatever I'm writing.

Anything can happen in SF. And the fact that nothing ever does happen in SF is only due to the poverty of our imaginations, we who write it or edit it or read it. But SF can in principle deal with anything.

I found some time ago that I have to be careful, while working on a novel, what I read.

I think these days an SF connection would be a boost to other books; I'm sure more people have read my two little detective puzzles because of the SF connection.

To my mind, the best SF addresses itself to problems of the here and now, or even to problems which have never been solved and never will be solved - I'm thinking of Philip K. Dick's work here, dealing with questions of reality, for example.

In most conventional novels, God is not allowed to be nuts. Nor are nuts allowed to be God.

Hearing the blues changed my life.

I'm a pretty hard worker.

An anniversary is where you look back at having either fulfilled Cinderella or Lord of the Flies.

If I have to, I'll go and direct theater and talk till the cows come home.

Ethics is inescapable.

My advice is, if you are going to go on 'X Factor,' you have to know who you are as an artist.

We must make sure that all of our returning servicemembers are honored and taken care of, no matter the wounds they bear.

Those eyes so ecstatic with the gleam of new life, the wide laugh that no doubt uses up so much of the breath contained in those tiny lungs.

To escape the curse of commoditization, a company has to be a game-changer, and that requires employees who are proactive, inventive and zealous.

Freedom is for fun.

The way that a handful of corporations in Los Angeles dictate how our stories are told creates a real poverty of imagination and it's a big problem.

The reason inflation was brought down to manageable levels, by the time of Ronald Reagan's re-election, was directly attributable to Jimmy Carter's very courageous act, hiring a Federal Reserve chair, with the charge to induce a recession. That recession was probably the reason he didn't win a second term.

Art is about the 'I' in life not the 'we', about private life rather than public. A public life that doesn't acknowledge the private is a life not worth having.

Laughing at our friends we avenge the disappointment they have caused.

Color is the language of the poets. It is astonishingly lovely. To speak it is a privilege.

I want everyone to look back and think that I was awesome.

The biggest hurdle is rejection. Any business you start, be ready for it. The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is the successful people do all the things the unsuccessful people don't want to do. When 10 doors are slammed in your face, go to door number 11 enthusiastically, with a smile on your face.

New York feels vibrant... It feels electric to walk the streets at night.

The caricature of what George Osborne is doing on the fiscal side is absurd. If you read some of the commentary, particularly from the left, you would think he was turning the clock back to the 1930s.

In general it can be said that a nation's art is greatest when it most reflects the character of its people.

It is remarkable that the elements diffused through the host of stars are some of those most closely connected with the living organisms of our globe.

I'm a very boring person.

There's nothing wrong in America that can't be fixed by what's right in America.

All that glisters is not gold