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

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.

We live with our archetypes, but can we live in them?

There are some ideas so stupid that only intellectuals can believe in them, particularly left-wing intellectuals.

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

The single definition of government I've ever seen that makes sense is that it's the organization which claims the right to kill people who won't do what it wants.

The fish that first ventured ashore had considerable practical problems.