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.

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.

The successful establishment of a buffer zone around Fort Carson will provide an example for other bases around the country as we seek to protect the training mission of the U.S. military while preserving critical habitats on our ranges.

On the road to equality there is no better place for blacks to detour around American values than in forgoing its example in the treatment of its women and the organization of its family.

For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the -the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you're dealt?

A lot of victims, for example, have become addicted to alcohol and drugs. It seems to me that the church's healing ministry is going to be enhanced through this in much broader strokes. That's good, it's all positive.

I ask every Communist individually to set an example, by deeds and without pretense, a real example worthy of a man and a Communist, in restoring order, starting normal life, in resuming work and production, and in laying the foundations of an ordered life.

Indeed, whenever a new idea is developed, as for example ballooning, warfare immediately takes possession.

For example, I spent a lot of time with Reagan, both before he ran for governor and when he was running for president. As a print reporter without the cameras, I was able to really test the quality of their minds and their knowledge base.

I know many Catholics love God with all their heart. I have genuine respect for anyone who truly has given their life to Christ. We read about Mother Teresa and what a wonderful example she was.

Example moves the world more than doctrine. The great exemplars are the poets of action, and it makes little difference whether they be forces for good or forces for evil.

To start with, for example this year, 2004, is the bicentennial of Haitian independence.

The feeling about a soldier is, when all is said and done, he wasn't really going to do very much with his life anyway. The example usually is: he wasn't going to compose Beethoven's Fifth.

We worked very hard to make the lyrics suit the music. I can't, like Elton John, for example, compose by lyrics. Elton has a great talent for that. Whatever you give him, including your questions, he composes in half an hour and makes a great song out of it.

For example, in my district there are visitors from all over the world who are drawn to our beautiful beaches, recreational lakes, habitat wildlife preserves and golf courses.

I think the players, I put in the book for example that we should go back to wood rackets, probably they laughed at me, I'm a dinosaur, but I think that you see these great players, have even more variety and you see more strategy, there'd be more subtlety.

I think the greatest photographers are the amateur photographers who do it because they love it. Arnold Newman is a good example; he is a consummate professional, but he's also an 'amateur' in the pure sense of the word.

For example, in painting the form arises from abstract elements of line and color, while in cinema the material concreteness of the image within the frame presents - as an element - the greatest difficulty in manipulation.

You can't substitute promise after promise with known violators of prior promises at the expense of protecting ourselves or setting an example.

Several professional athletes have wrongly taught many young Americans by example that the only way to succeed in sports is to take steroids.

It may be an extreme example brought about by abnormal circumstances - but the criteria of human rights kick in, surely, precisely when the conditions are extreme and the situation is abnormal.

We could not, for example, arrive at a principle like that of entropy without introducing some additional principle, such as randomness, to this topography.

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.

Example is leadership.

Look at what the Omar of Qatar is doing, for example - the King of Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain. There are reform movements taking place, efforts to broaden the political participation of the populations of the region.

Things happened there that I don't think are the finest hours for anybody, whether it was a journalist, the legal system or, in that case of the political system, who would say that was an example of when Washington worked best.

The hydrogen powered car, with its high fuel mileage and zero emission rate, is just one example of the products under development that will help increase our energy independence.

God, for example, appealed to me as a beardless man wearing a quilted silk cap; holiness was something burning, forbidding, something connected with fire while a day had the form of an oblong box.

Much as I cared for Joseph Kennedy, he was a classic example of that person in the arts with lots of brains and drive but little taste or talent.

I don't get over the wonder of it, and 'The Last Samurai' was an extreme example of that. Every day when I went to the set, I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example.

Whether the ice caps melt, or expand - whatever happens - the anthropogenic global warming theorists claim it confirms their theory. A perfect example of a pseudo-science like astrology.