You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.

[Social] science fiction is that branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance on human beings.

Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

There is no merit to discipline under ideal circumstances. I must have it in the face of death or it is worthless.

I don’t like anything that’s got to be. I want to know why.

Computerization eliminates the middleman

All the hundreds of millions of people who, in their time, believed the Earth was flat never succeeded in unrounding it by an inch.