[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.

Never despise a drink because it is easy to make and/or uses commercial mixes. Unquestioning devotion to authenticity is, in any department of life, a mark of the naive - or worse.

Only a world without love strikes me as instantly and decisively more terrible than one without music.

We should be wrong to demand that a critic must stay on the point all the time; it is enough if he remains in orbit around it.

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

Whatever part drink may play in the writer's life, it must play none in his or her work.

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.