I have no use for people who have learned the limits of the possible.

Books must be treated with respect, we feel that in our bones, because words have power. Bring enough words together they can bend space and time.

There's always a story. It's all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything's got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.

I read anything that’s going to be interesting. But you don’t know what it is until you’ve read it. Somewhere in a book on the history of false teeth there’ll be the making of a novel.

There's no point in killing an opponent... There's no triumph over a corpse, but a beaten opponent, who will remain beaten every day of the remainder of their sad and wretched life, is something to treasure.

I got into science fiction by being interested in astronomy first.

You couldn't say 'I had orders.' You couldn't say 'It's not fair.' No one was listening. There were no Words. You owned yourself. [...] Not 'Thou Shalt Not'. Say 'I Will Not'.