High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of.

I sometimes wondered what the use of any of the arts was. The best thing I could come up with was what I call the canary in the coal mine theory of the arts. This theory says that artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive. They are super-sensitive. They keel over like canaries in poison coal mines long before more robust types realize that there is any danger whatsoever.

Be kind. Don't kill for any reason. Don't even kill out of self-defense. Really - I mean that. Don't take any more than you need of anything. Help others.

Science fiction is like other writing. It is just novels and short stories with machines.

There is a similarity between writers and SDS [Students for a Democratic Society, a radical left-wing group]: Plenty of paranoia, but no ideas.

The big advantage of being a chemistry major was the freedom to be tasteless.

If you are going to be a writer, you must be paranoid. The thing is, in the arts if you don't overreact, you fall asleep.