Last night I thought about all the kerosene I've used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before...It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, and then I come along in two minutes and boom! it's all over.

I have four daughters and eight grandchildren. My soul lives on in them. That's immortality. That's the only immortality I care about.

This afternoon, burn down the house. Tomorrow, pour critical water upon the simmering coals. Time enough to think and cut and rewrite tomorrow. But today-explode-f ly-apart-disint egrate! The other six or seven drafts are going to be pure torture. So why not enjoy the first draft, in the hope that your joy will seek and find others in the world who, by reading your story, will catch fire, too?

In order for a thing to be horrible it has to suffer a change you can recognize.

Those women like to see their tongues dance.

You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year

Fantasies are things that can't happen, and science fiction is about things that can happen.