The only leverage the manufacturer can apply to the retailer is his relationship with the consumer. And the main element in profit growth is going to have to lie in making his brand more valuable to the retailer, through its being more valuable to the consumer. And that means his brand must be unique, it must have no adequate direct substitutes - because it is in this, after all, that value lies.

There may be fairies, there may be elves, but God helps those who help themselves.

Now I think all of us were born with a hole in our hearts, and we go around looking for the person who can fill it. You... you fill me up.

Women's lib, Frannie had decided, was nothing more nor less than an outgrowth of the technological society. Women were at the mercy of their bodies. They were smaller. They tended to be weaker. A man couldn't get with child, but a woman could---every four-year-old knows it. And a pregnant woman is a vulnerable human being. Civilization had provided an umbrella of sanity that both sexes could stand beneath.

I think it is harder to write a story that appeals to the intellect. But, when you tie onto one, you can do it quite deeply. It really depends on the type of idea you have to begin with.

I know life is hard, I think everyone knows that in their hearts, but why dos it have to be cruel, as well? Why does it have to bite?

There are, occasionally, writers who are able to combine both story and style. They are, of course, the best. You get a spectacular view and you also get to look at it from the backseat of a chauffeur-driven Cadillac. In the field of fantasy, those writers able to combine story-as-narration with story-as-style are even rarer. But there are a few...the late Theodore Sturgeon, the early Ray Bradbury...and Richard Christian Matheson. A brilliant chip off the old block.