It is just an illusion here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone, it is gone forever.

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.

I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can't help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That's why we've got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.

I'm mad about being old and I'm mad about being American. Apart from that, OK.

You've got to be a good date for the reader.

This is what I find encouraging about the writing trades: ... They allow lunatics to seem saner than sane.

If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is.