Writers must fortify themselves with pride and egotism as best they can. The process is analogous to using sandbags and loose timbers to protect a house against flood. Writers are vulnerable creatures like anyone else. For what do they have in reality? Not sandbags, not timbers. Just a flimsy reputation and a name.

Feedback is a pleasant thing. I get a lot of letters from unexpected people in unexpected places.

The fatal error of much science fiction has been to subscribe to an optimism based on the idea that revolution, or a new gimmick, or a bunch of strong men, or an invasion of aliens, or the conquest of other planets, or the annihilation of half the world--in short, pretty nearly anything but the facing up to the integral and irredeemable nature of mankind--can bring about utopian situations. It is the old error of the externalization of evil.

I can't help believing that these things that come from the subconscious mind have a sort of truth to them. It may not be a scientific truth, but it's psychological truth.

The day of the android has dawned.

Keep violence in the mind Where it belongs (Barefoot in the Head)

I am a writer and always was; being a writer is an integral part of my identity. Being published, being well regarded, is a component of that identity.