If we knew exactly what to expect throughout the Solar System, we would have no reason to explore it.

Will none wipe the sneer off the face of the cosmos?

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

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.

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.

I wrote the first book, Harvest of Stars, and as I was writing it, I saw that certain implications had barely been touched on... It's perfectly obvious that two completely revolutionary things are going on, with cybernetics, and biological science.

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.