We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

Love is the answer to everything. It's the only reason to do anything. If you don't write stories you love, you'll never make it. If you don't write stories that other people love, you'll never make it.

A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.

If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.

We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.

Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We've been so busy damning ourselves for years. We've done it all, and yet we don't take credit for it.

The answer to all writing, to any career for that matter, is love.

It's not going to do any good to land on Mars if we're stupid.

I have my favorite cat, who is my paperweight, on my desk while I am writing.

I'm not in control of my muse. My muse does all the work.

We are anthill men upon an anthill world.

There is too much government today. We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people, and for the people.

Why go to a machine when you could go to a human being?

Everything is generated through your own will power.

I have fun with ideas; I play with them.

I think we're doing a dreadful job of educating.

I'm not a serious person, and I don't like serious people.

Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and the next thing I know I'm borrowing energy from the ideas themselves.

I don't have a computer. A computer's a typewriter. I already have a typewriter.