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

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.

birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers

Things are never simple when it comes to the human heart.

'Cloverfield' and 'REC' are great examples of movies that took kind of tired genres, the monster movie and the zombie film, and by filming them in found footage, it was a new perspective. It gives you a whole new take and helps you re-experience that all over again.

I always did my own thing. I'm not an outsider, but I have one foot in and one foot out.

Food is the new Internet.

A good education is that which prepares us for our future sphere of action and makes us contented with that situation in life in which God, in his infinite mercy, has seen fit to place us, to be perfectly resigned to our lot in life, whatever it may be.

That's the great thing about New Year's, you get to be a year older. For me, that wasn't such a joke, because my birthday was always around this time. When I was a kid, my father used to tell me that everybody was celebrating my birthday. That's what the trees are all about.

Until I became a nurse, no one had ever asked me to sign a book contract. I had been writing for decades, read thousands of books, and even worked in publishing for 10 years. Who knew that nursing would be my break?

Just thinking about you brings a smile to face, a twinkle to my eye, and a skipped beat to my heart.

I'm not too into the trends - I like to look at trends as suggestions, not as rules.

Since the time of Homer every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric.

Burger King's business model was broken. But it was like sex in the '50s. Everyone knew it, but no one would talk about it.

Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.

We're all brought up to believe that the best players show up in the biggest games, and what bigger game than the Super Bowl? I've just been blessed and very lucky to have two of my best games on that stage.

Charleston, South Carolina, is about a 90-minute drive northwest of Beaufort and Parris Island. It is an old city reborn with new charm and an influx of snowbirds from the North attracted by its ease, comfort and accessibility.

Dreams are what keep us growing. They are what keep us alive. To give up, is to let our dreams die.

Well, they had to have me in the G-string because this is PG-13, right?

Feminism is just about equality, really, and there's so much stuff attached to the word, when it's actually so simple. I don't know why it's always so bogged down.

First come, first served

Electronic communications networks match trades between investors directly, without using a market maker or specialist as an intermediary.

I can see my work as a job. I do it for money. I likely already look forward to the weekend on Thursdays. And I probably will need a hobby as a leveling mechanism. In a career, I'm definitely more engaged. But at the same time, there will be periods when I think, 'Is all that really hard work really worth my while?'

I have always had a dream to take part in an Olympic Games, and losing my leg didn't change anything.

Coaches who have been players in the league, they get so attuned to playing how they were successful and who their coaches were.

The paradox of endurance sports is that an athlete can never work as hard as he wants, because if he pushes himself too far, his hematocrit will fall.