Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We've been so busy damning ourselves for years. We've done it all, and yet we don't take credit for it.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts.

You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

Love is easy, and I love writing. You can't resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you're in love.

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories.

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.

We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.

We are anthill men upon an anthill world.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance - the idea that anything is possible.

Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me.After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

You've got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.

Love is the answer to everything. It's the only reason to do anything. If you don't write stories you love, you'll never make it. If you don't write stories that other people love, you'll never make it.

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

Touch a scientist and you touch a child.

I don't try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.

If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.

If you don't like what you're doing, then don't do it.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

You fail only if you stop writing.

Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.

I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true - hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it.

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.

Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We've been so busy damning ourselves for years. We've done it all, and yet we don't take credit for it.

'Fahrenheit 451' postulates a lot of things I didn't want to have happen.

A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.

After Hiroshima was bombed, I saw a photograph of the side of a house with the shadows of the people who had lived there burned into the wall from the intensity of the bomb. The people were gone, but their shadows remained.

All my stories are like the Greek and Roman myths, and the Egyptian myths, and the Old and New Testament.

All of my writing is God-given.

All of us, no matter how we look born into this world, feel something like the Hunchback. It doesn't matter if you have a beautiful face or not.

All the women in my life have been librarians, English teachers and book sellers.

Any experience that touches you, in any particular way, is good. It can be a horrible experience.

Bo Derek is a really good friend of mine, and I'd like to spend more time with her.

Books are alive, you see. They're not dead, they're alive.

Burroughs is crap. Crap.

Collecting facts is important. Knowledge is important. But if you don't have an imagination to use the knowledge, civilization is nowhere.

Electronic books are junk.

Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

Everybody has forgotten that Russia helped start the Second World War.

Everything is generated through your own will power.

Everything is my demon muse. I have a muse which whispers in my ear and says, 'Do this, do that,' but it's my demon who provokes me.

Facts are not interesting to me.