Man is the poet who kills, Woman the angel who eats.

Ray Bradbury is, for many reasons, the most influential writer in my life. Throughout our long friendship, Ray supplied not only his terrific stories but a grand model of what a writer could be, should be, and yet rarely is: brilliant and charming and accessible, willing to tolerate and to teach, happy to inspire but also to be inspired.

There is nothing finer in the world than the telling of tales. Split atoms if you wish, but splitting an infinitive-and getting away with it-is far nobler. Lance boils if you wish, but pricking pretensions is often cleaner and always more fun.

For years, even before 9/11, I've been trying to warn that the threat from amateur biolabs will ultimately turn out to be far more troublesome than leakage from military labs - perhaps even more costly and deadly than nuclear terrorism.

It's been a great place to get in touch with what people are really thinking. And to make contact with readers and other writers. Egalitarian, wide open, like the Wild West!

It's kind of a misnomer about science fiction that science fiction is about anything other than people. It's about people doing stuff, sometimes doing extraordinary stuff.

All things will be ambiguous, for this is the curse of wisdom.