One thing I found out was that we need extended families. We need gangs. And, of course, if they're tribes and clans and so forth have been dispersed by the industrial revolution by people looking for work wherever they can find it. And a nuclear family, a man, a woman and kids and a dog and cat is no survival scheme at all. Horribly vulnerable.

Vonnegut could not help looking back, despite the danger of being turned metaphorically into a pillar of salt, into am emblem of the death that comes to those who cannot let go of the past

A story has to be a good date, because the reader can stop at any time. Remember, readers are selfish and have no compulsion to be decent about anything.

We could have saved the earth, but we were too damned cheap.

Our government's got a war on drugs. That's certainly better than no drugs at all.

My special situation was that I was the son and grandson of architects. And so I saw building. We were building the city, and that was exciting.

[I write] intuitively, reflexively, as if skiing down a steep mountain slope with no time to think.