I don't plot my books rigidly, follow a preconceived structure. A novel mustn't be a closed system - it's a quest.
Science is magic that works.
I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival.
There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.
We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.
I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.
Never index your own book.
There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.
One of the things that I tell beginning writers is this: If you describe a landscape, or a cityscape, or a seascape, always be sure to put a human figure somewhere in the scene. Why? Because readers are human beings, mostly interested in human beings. People are humanists. Most of them are humanists, that is.
The feeling about a soldier is, when all is said and done, he wasn't really going to do very much with his life anyway. The example usually is: he wasn't going to compose Beethoven's Fifth.
When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.
