Part of the particular interest and beauty of science fiction and fantasy: writer and reader collaborate in world-making.

To see a candle's light, one must take it into a dark place. This is the same as to see the good and be grateful, one must compare and contrast it with something worse - not better!

George, it's impossible to correct a defective reality-orientation overnight.

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.

In art, 'good enough' is not good enough.

While we read a novel, we are insane—bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices... Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.

A writer either speaks to adults and bores kids, or speaks to kids and upsets adults.