When I start on a book, I have been thinking about it and making occasional notes for some time... So I have lots of theme, locale, subjects and technical ideas... I don't worry about long periods of not doing anything. I know my subconscious is busy.

Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses.

Now, before you make a movie, you have to have a script, and before you have a script, you have to have a story; though some avant-garde directors have tried to dispense with the latter item, you'll find their work only at art theaters.

Floyd could imagine a dozen things that could go wrong; it was little consolation that it was always the thirteenth that actually happened.

One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.

What was more, they had taken the first step toward genuine friendship. They had exchanged vulnerabilities.

Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.