Whatever creativity is, it is in part a solution to a problem.

Fantasy is literature for teenagers.

A writer should say to himself, not, How can I get more money?, but How can I reach more readers (without lowering standards)?

That is why we dread children, even if we love them. They show us the state of our decay.

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.

Science fiction is the search for a definition of mankind and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post Gothic mode.

I have had wealth, rank and power, but, if these were all I had, how wretched I should be.