The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion. However valuable-even necessary-that may have been in enforcing good behavior on primitive peoples, their association is now counterproductive. Yet at the very moment when they should be decoupled, sanctimonious nitwits are calling for a return to morals based on superstition.

When all else failed, you had to rely on eyeball intrumentation.

We over estimate technology in the short term and under estimate technology in the long term.

In this single galaxy of ours there are eighty-seven thousand million suns. [...] In challenging it, you would be like ants attempting to label and classify all the grains of sand in all the deserts of the world. [...] It is a bitter thought, but you must face it. The planets you may one day possess. But the stars are not for man.

I want to be remembered most as a writer - one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.

I'm quite fond of the writer who told a beginning author, "If you've got a message, use Western Union."

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.