Red tape has killed more people than bullets.

Feeding the starving poor only increases their number.

My first published novel was written for teenagers, and there were rules laid down by the publisher: no sex, no smoking, no swearing. I blew up entire solar systems, I consigned billions of people to horrible death; they didn't seem to mind that at all. But no hanky-panky.

The problem is that Americans would like to be independent of the rest of the world ... Except the world ain't that way. Trying to be independent of the rest of the world is to commit suicide.

Red tape has killed more people than bullets.

Up here [in space], you're free. Really free, for the first time in your life. All the laws and rules and prejudices they've been dumping on you all your life . . . they're all down there. Up here it's a new start. You can be yourself and do your own thing . . . and nobody can tell you different.

When I started understanding how science works, it occurred to me that there just is no evidence that there is a God.