The big trouble with dumb bastards is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart.

Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

The surface of Earth heaved and seethed in fecund restlessness. Earth was most fertile where the most death was.

When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away - even if it's only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.

The Population Reference Bureau predicts that the world's total population will double to 7,000,000,000 before the year 2000. I suppose they will all want dignity, I said.

I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex.

The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?" It doesn't take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period. This is it: "Nothing.