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

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.

Anderson Cooper is fine. He is a smart, conscientious guy, and he seems to want his show to produce and highlight good journalism. But he also seems to want to replace Regis, or maybe even Oprah.

Nobody can be exactly me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.

Ever since I was 15, I've tried to act and talk as if I was a public figure because I was sure that I would be one day and wanted to be prepared.

I tell everybody there are only three things that we do. We build sales at the store level, we build profits at the store level, and we build more stores. The first two things go in tandem, of course. It's pretty tough to build profits without sales.

I've gotten to know a number of readers from being online, and really treasure the time I've spent with them.

This is probably one of the most difficult challenges any parent could face learning to love the other parent enough to make the children first.

I engaged upon those activities because I believed that, in the dangerous circumstances which have been created in South Africa, it was my duty to do so.

The whole new Democratic Party is the old Republican Party. We have a whole bunch of elephants running around in donkey's clothes.

All I've ever really done is page 3 in The Sun, and not every man reads that.

Two sittings a day of my models and I'm totally exhausted.

If I have one skill as a manager, I can make things extremely clear.

We are often told we can't have brains and beauty, and I really hope that my message is that you can put on that red lip and curl your hair and put on that power dress - you don't have to sacrifice one for the other.

When you're young, you don't think about your career or your future - you perform because you love it.

A group of scientists wanted to find the most effective mosquito repellents. So they tested 10 different substances, including campout standbys like DEET, as well as a random choice: Victoria's Secret perfume Bombshell. Turns out the perfume is almost as good as DEET.

Republicans have called for a National African-American Museum. The plan is being held up by finding a location that isn't in their neighborhood.

To portray not only a boxer but a boxer like Roberto Duran, I needed to understand all the difficulties and the pressures of the sport itself.

We're bigger now than we were in the late 70s when we were peaking.

The worst censors are those prohibiting criticism of the theory of evolution in the classroom.

My very first acting job was with Alan Parker on' Angela's Ashes,' but as a child, I had written to so many other productions just applying for any role. I always wanted to be an actress, and I did loads of acting summer schools.

In TV, and in particular in commercials, you don't really need to explain very much at all - you just say he's a spy and he's a little bit theatrical and overblown and smug and he's not very good at his job.

A lot of times Mick will play me different things, or I'll listen to a cassette, and out of twenty ideas or whatever, I'll find two or three that are just blowing me away, and we'll start working on them right away.

As I have written before, one of my favorite parts of my job as CEO of Moda Operandi is the opportunity I get to explore international fashion scenes to discover new talent, and then being able to introduce these designers to our community of fashion-savvy customers worldwide.

All the times I've been lucky enough to be a part of a show that's actually gotten on the air, it's always that same mixture of excitement and utter fear.

It is not helpful to have those kind of comments come out when we've got troops in combat.