At each stage...entirely new laws, concepts and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one.

He had seen too much of the cosmos to have any great faith in man's ability to understand it.

The fish that first ventured ashore had considerable practical problems.

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

I think the first duty of all art, including fiction of any kind, is to entertain. That is to say, to hold interest. No matter how worthy the message of something, if it's dull, you're just not communicating.

Happier are all men than the dwellers in Faerie – or the gods, for that matter…Better a life like a falling star, bright across the dark, than a deathlessness that can see naught above or beyond itself…the day draws nigh when Faerie shall fade, the Erlking himself shrink to a woodland sprite and then to nothing, and the gods go under. And the worst of it is, I cannot believe it wrong that the immortals will not live forever.

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.