The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. Look at the magazines, the newspapers around us - it's all junk, all trash, tidbits of news. The average TV ad has 120 images a minute. Everything just falls off your mind. You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

You don’t question Providence. If you can’t have the reality, a dream is just as good.

The important thing of any time you live in is to be in love yourself. You float above your time then. It's what you want that counts, not what your time wants.

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

There are certain kinds of people who write science fiction. I think a lot of us married late. A lot of us are mama's boys. I lived at home until I was 27. But most of the writers I know in any field, especially science fiction, grew up late. They're so interested in doing what they do and in their science, they don't think about other things.

I'm not anyone, I'm just myself; whatever I am, I am something, and now I'm something you can't help.

Poverty made a sound like a wet cough in the shadows of the room.