A computation is a process that obeys finitely describable rules.

Unfortunately our nation, nay, our world, is run by evil morons.

If you think of your life as a kind of computation, it's quite abundantly clear that there's not going to be a final answer and there won't be anything particularly wonderful about having the computation halt!

One of the nice things about science fiction is that it lets us carry out thought experiments.

Traditional science is all about finding shortcuts.

In any case, A New Kind of Science is a wonderful book, and I'm still absorbing its teachings.

The hard fact is that not everyone does get published.

It's soothing to realize that my mind's processes are inherently uncontrollable.

But how does it feel to plug into a system that's say, a million times as smart as a person.

All living things are gnarly, in that they inevitably do things that are much more complex than one might have expected.

I like a book better if I can't predict what's going to happen.

Electronic distribution is more of a fall-back strategy for putting out a book that isn't deemed profitable enough to print. You hardly make any money publishing an electronic book.

I like to do things that are surprising and different.

Selling a book or story has never become absolutely automatic for me.

A computation is a process that obeys finitely describable rules.

Science fiction writers put characters into a world with arbitrary rules and work out what happens.

Computations are everywhere, once you begin to look at things in a certain way.

If we suppose that many natural phenomena are in effect computations, the study of computer science can tell us about the kinds of natural phenomena that can occur.

Lately I've been working to convince myself that everything is a computation.

Now, being a science fiction writer, when I see a natural principle, I wonder if it could fail.

I think dry nanotechnology is probably a dead-end.

Advice to beginning SF writers? Write a lot, finish what you write, and when it's done, keep sending it out for quite awhile.

At present, however, I don't think the Net is a very good medium for books, books should really be inexpensive lightweight paperbacks you can bang around.

If all else fails, there's always print or web zines.

It's tedious to watch something very obvious being worked out, like a movie that's not particularly good and after about half an hour you know how it's going to end.

Some ideas you have to chew on, then roll them around a lot, play with them before you can turn them into funky science fiction.

The principal rule of art is to please and to move. All the other rules were created to achieve this first one.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

I like rules that are broken.

I figured out it was a social thing, what women were allowed to do. At a very young age, I decided I was not going to follow women's rules.

There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.

Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph, is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk.

You're a Catholic in Italy when you're born, it's unthinkable to stop being Catholic. You just take the rules a lot more seriously, because it pervades your culture.

There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.

Apart from a few simple principles, the sound and rhythm of English prose seem to me matters where both writers and readers should trust not so much to rules as to their ears.

Some theists in evolutionary science acquiesce to these tacit rules and retain a personal faith while accepting a thoroughly naturalistic picture of physical reality.

Love begets love, love knows no rules, this is same for all.

Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage.

In things to be seen at once, much variety makes confusion, another vice of beauty. In things that are not seen at once, and have no respect one to another, great variety is commendable, provided this variety transgress not the rules of optics and geometry.

Unless we repeal the illegal Byrd amendment, American exports will be vulnerable to retaliation, and the U.S. will continue to face a difficult task convincing other countries to make their laws comply with international rules.

What scared me in that debate is that it's not about the ownership rules at all. The vast majority of people don't even know what the rules say, to be perfectly candid. Name all six of them.

Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort.

I believe every chess player senses beauty, when he succeeds in creating situations, which contradict the expectations and the rules, and he succeeds in mastering this situation.

As far as critics, I'm not a hip guy. I was never on drugs. Nobody ever felt sorry for me 'cause I went straight or found God. I always had God. I've always like, played by the rules.

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

The rules are learnt in order to be broken, but if you don't know them, then something is missing.

Rape, mutilation, abuse, and theft are the natural outcome of a world in which force rules, in which human beings are objects.

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.

The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they do not know the game.