My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.

We already live a very long time for mammals, getting three times as many heartbeats as a mouse or elephant. It never seems enough though, does it?

Many people have tried to define science fiction. I like to call it the literature of exploration and change. While other genres obsess upon so-called eternal verities, SF deals with the possibility that our children may have different problems. They may, indeed, be different than we have been.

One of the rules I try to follow is that normal people are going to be involved even in heroic events

You don't have conversations with microprocessors. You tell them what to do, then helplessly watch the disaster when they take you literally!

The measure of (mental) health is flexibility (not comparison to some 'norm'), the freedom to learn from experience ... to be influenced by reasonable arguments ... and the appeal to the emotions ... and especially the freedom to cease when sated. The essence of illness is the freezing of behavior into unalterable and insatiable patterns.

Prison for the crime of puberty -- that was how secondary school had seemed.