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

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.

From time immemorial, man has desired to comprehend the complexity of nature in terms of as few elementary concepts as possible.

There have been periods of my life when I was heavier, like right after high school I definitely gained that freshman 15. It was tough to lose. Ever since then, I know that I can gain weight, so I try to be careful.

I would never write a sentence that didn't have a nice rhythm, or at least I wouldn't leave it to be published like that. It seems to me that prose mustn't be prosaic.

Nations are not thugs. They are bodies of intelligent people.

A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.

And it turns out that tribes, not money, not factories, that can change our world, that can change politics, that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will. But because they wanted to connect.

Shamanism is a kind of universal spiritual practice with indigenous cultures around the world, and one important element of it is taking care of spirits.

Some of the most famous books are the least worth reading. Their fame was due to their having done something that needed to be doing in their day. The work is done and the virtue of the book has expired.

I did a fantastic emotional film, 'Autograph.' But the audiences rejected me in it. They like to see me laughing and fighting.

Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

I was eight when we came to Australia. It was five amazing weeks onboard this ship - it was the Northern Star.

Within the cult of Wall Street that forged Mitt Romney, making money justifies any behavior, no matter how venal.

I escaped to New York, and then L.A., but when I dream of home, I still dream of my old house in Holmdel.

Opera is a beautiful and important diversion for me.

But I think we need the international market.

Research indicates that employees have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company.

I am confident Pakistani government will provide me with adequate security, unlike the government at the time that sabotaged my mother's security in Pakistan.

Under popular culture's obsession with a naive inclusion, everything is O.K.

The truth about Pearl Harbour is obscured to this day. But it has been much studied.

I always have this feeling that I'm losing everything, so I'm a real saver.

Conscience. That stuff can drive you nuts.

There is a healthy competition as there would be in any business. But we do not spend our days thinking about what Marvel is doing.