To bring anything really to life in literature we can't be lifelike: we have to be literature-like

The Bible is not interested in arguing, because if you state a thesis of belief you have already stated it's opposite; if you say, I believe in God, you have already suggested the possibility of not believing in him. [p.250]

The world of literature is a world where there is no reality except that of the human imagination.

[Science fiction is] a mode of romance with a strong inherent tendency to myth.

Americans like to make money, Canadians like to count it.

Those who are concerned with the arts are often asked questions, not always sympathetic ones, about the use or value of what they are doing. It is probably impossible to answer such questions directly, or at any rate to answer the people who ask them.

A snowflake is probably quite unconscious of forming a crystal, but what it does may be worth study even if we are willing to leave its inner mental processes alone.