Science fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is in fact going on, what people actually do and feel, how people relate to everything else in this vast sack, this belly of the universe, this womb of things to be and tomb of things that were, this unending story.

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.

And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.

Life goes on, even if two-headed and glowing faintly in the dark.

The creative adult is the child who has survived.

Virginity is now a mere preamble or waiting room to be got out of as soon as possible; it is without significance.