I'd never been published when I was young.

You used the word "civilization", which means a set of abstractions, symbols, conventions. Experience tends to be vicarious; emotions are predigested and electrical; ideas become more real than things.

I got done writing Ports of Call and suddenly realized I have far too much material for the book.

As I mentioned, I was a carpenter for a time.

I know that the history of man is not his technical triumphs, his kills, his victories. It is a composite, a mosaic of a trillion pieces, the account of each man's accommodation with his conscience. This is the true history of the race.

I don't read other science fiction. I don't read any at all.

I haven't sold to the movies. In other words, I haven't gotten any enormous checks yet.