Two lives met across death and centuries. To ask what it meant is meaningless. There is no destiny. But sometimes there is bravery

Better a life like a falling star, brief bright across the dark, than the long, long waiting of the immortals, loveless and cheerlessly wise.

What five books would I like to be remembered for? Well... Tau Zero, I like that one especially. It was somewhat of a tour de force, and I think it got across what I was trying for.

A fanatic's willingness to kill or be killed in the service of a cause cannot prove the rightness of that cause.

Give fear no hold on you. Keep sinews loose and senses open, ready at every instant to flow with the rush of action.

My knowledge of the human psyche is as yet imperfect. Certain areas won't yield to computation.

So much American science fiction is parochial - not as true now as it was years ago, but the assumption is one culture in the future, more or less like ours, and with the same ideals, the same notions of how to do things, just bigger and flashier technology. Well, you know darn well it doesn't work that way.