I used to take my short stories to girls' homes and read them to them. Can you imagine the reaction reading a short story to a girl instead of pawing her?

Somewhere in him, a shadow turned mournfully over. You had to run with a night like this so the sadness could not hurt

I’m really alive! he thought. I never knew it before, or if I did I don’t remember!

Sandwich outdoors isn’t a sandwich anymore. Tastes different than indoors, notice? Got more spice. Tastes like mint and pinesap. Does wonders for the appetite.

If you have moved over vast territories and dared to love silly things, you will have learned even from the most primitive items collected and put aside in your life.

But with the library, it's like catnip, I suppose: you begin to run in circles because there's so much to look at and read.

A science fiction story is just an attempt to solve a problem that exists in the world, sometimes a moral problem, sometimes a physical or social or theological problem.