Advertising reaches out to touch the fantasy part of people's lives. And you know, most people's fantasies are pretty sad.

In terms of stories I would buy for a science fiction magazine, if they take place in the future, that might do it.

When I sit down to the feast of life ... I'm so busy planning on how to pick up the check, and wondering what the other people think of me for paying it, and wondering if I have enough money in my pocket to pay the bill, that I don't get around to eating.

I did that for 40 years or more. I never had any writer's block. I got up in the morning, sat down at the typewriter - now, computer - lit up a cigarette.

It's clear that science and science fiction have overlapping populations.

For someone to be taken seriously it was valuable to have the appearance of someone who deserved to be taken seriously.

That's really what SF is all about, you know: the big reality that pervades the real world we live in: the reality of change. Science fiction is the very literature of change. In fact, it is the only such literature we have.