When starting to think about any novel, part of the motive is: I'm going to show them, this time.

If you are using an adverb, you have got the verb wrong.

I'll pour you the first one and after that, if you don't have one, it's your own f****** fault. You know where it is.

If there's one word that sums up everything that's gone wrong since the war, it's Workshop. After Youth, that is.

How wrong people always were when they said: 'It's better to know the worst than go on not knowing either way.' No; they had it exactly the wrong way round. Tell me the truth, doctor, I'd sooner know. But only if the truth is what I want to hear.

[Science fiction is] that class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesised on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terrestrial in origin. It is distinguished from pure fantasy by its need to achieve verisimilitude and win the 'willing suspension of disbelief' through scientific plausibility.

Feeling a tremendous rakehell, and not liking myself much for it, and feeling rather a good chap for not liking myself much for it, and not liking myself at all for feeling rather a good chap.