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 triumph of anything is a matter of organization.

We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should.

Most kids can't afford to go to Harvard to be misinformed.

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

Anyone unable to understand how useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.

The time would not pass. Somebody was playing with the clocks, and not only the electronic clocks but the wind-up kind too. The second hand on my watch would twitch once, and a year would pass, and then it would twitch again. There was nothing I could do about it. As an Earthling I had to believe whatever clocks said -and calendars.