We sat around on a hotel balcony with a bottle of wine and tried to figure out how you would go about blowing up a planet. That's the kind of conversations science fiction writers have when they get together. We don't talk about football or anything like that.

Every spare second I would write, somehow. On my lunch hour, too.

There will come a time of fire and night, when enemies rise and empires fall, when the stars themselves begin to die.

I always had this non-stop drive. I had to keep sending stories out and every once in awhile I'd get something accepted or get the little trickle of positive feedback.

Of course you don't make any noise in space, because there's no air.

Sure, President Bush can say that the U.S. government won't fund stem cell research, but believe me, Japan is applauding. Because they will just do it first and get all the patents.

A moment of consideration often prevents a thousand apologies