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.

Death has this much to be said for it: You don't have to get out of bed for it. Wherever you happen to be They bring it to you—free.

Now and then I become conscious of having the reputation of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of the great drunks, of our time.

[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.

Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means ... the need to be left. I am driven to grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.

Education is one thing and instruction, however worthy, necessary and incidentally or monetarily educative, another.

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