Until work has reached its previous stage nympharium privileges are denied to all.

I do read books. I suppose it’s more or less the same thing, but at least I’m alone and I’m an individual. I can stop anytime I want, which I frequently do.

But I’ve sure worked at jobs where I have been under inspection.

I worked for half a cent a word. I’m not a fast writer to begin with, so for the first few years I had do other things.

I will be glad to go. There is no poetry here. It is as I have always set forth: joy comes of its own free will; it cannot be belabored.

Right now I’m so old that if I had a big gush of money, I don’t know what I’d do with it. I don’t travel anymore. I don’t need anything, don’t want anything. I’d give...

I haven’t been to a movie since somebody gave me free tickets to Star Wars, which I went to.

I’d never been published when I was young.

Le persone che vivevano in massa, pensò Shorn, erano come ciottoli su di una spiaggia: ciascuna levigava il suo vicino, fino a quando tutte erano assolutamente uniformi.

So I’ll write it, and then I’ll find out that I actually wrote something that is utterly useless. You can’t use it in the story and it doesn’t fit. So I just throw it away....

In fact, almost every job you get somebody watching you.

If religions are diseases of the human psyche, as the philosopher Grintholde asserts, then religious wars must be reckoned the resultant sores and cankers infecting the aggregate corpus of the human race. Of all wars,...

But I’m so slow on it because I find it terribly hard writing blind on computers. The computer speaks to me, but it’s just so slow, I’m so terribly slow using it.

Law cannot reach where enforcement will not follow. —Popular aphorism.

Then there was Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote for Weird Tales and who had a wild imagination. He wasn’t a very talented writer, but his imagination was wonderful.

It seems to limit you; when you’re working in an office, you’re a creature in a small cell under somebody’s supervision and surveillance.

Good music always defeats bad luck.

But Roy Rockwood, it was science fiction for the sake of science fiction.

The Brinktown jail is one of the most ingenious ever propounded by civic authorities. It must be remembered that Brinktown occupies the surface of a volcanic butte, overlooking a trackless jungle of quagmire, thorn, eel-vine...

There was a writer in the ’20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn’t tell you what it was.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, because I read and read and read. I read everything.

There had been an attempt to humiliate him. It had not succeeded. He had paid, but pain, like pleasure, has no duration. Pride was an entity more persistent.

I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell.

Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience. Otherwise they fall into desuetude and become unfashionable, unorthodox—finally irregulationary.

When the ships had lifted, they returned across the river to the silence of death. Then his grandfather told him, “Many fine things your father had planned for you: learning and useful work and a...

I don’t read other science fiction. I don’t read any at all.

I understand the gist of your speculation,’ said Rhialto. ‘It is most likely nuncupatory.

I never made lots of money at it, but I sold enough.

Shimrod gave the boy a copper penny. ‘Bring me now a goblet of good tawny wine.’By a sleight of magic Shimrod augmented the acuity of his hearing, so that the whispers of two young lovers...

What is peace? Balance three iron skewers tip to tip, one upon the other; at the summit, emplace an egg, so that it too poises static in mid-air, and there you have the condition of...

This flattery has been rather slow in coming. I think all of sudden late in life now I’m getting some credit for what I’ve done. Which is gratifying, but it’s kind of a little late.

I am not Cugel the Clever for nothing!

I never worked in an office in my life.

The story was such that I couldn’t make a graceful ending and then make a graceful new beginning. I could have, but I didn’t want to. So, it isn’t the most graceful way of writing...

Guyal of Sfere had been born one apart from his fellows and early proved a source of vexation for his sire. Normal in outward configuration, there existed within his mind a void that ached for...

But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me.

One becomes sated with platitudes no less than honey, so that one often breaks another’s bones in one’s vexation.

I thought that automobiles were going to have mufflers and go fast and airplanes were going to fly fast.

I was a carpenter for a time and everybody watches what you do.

I got done writing Ports of Call and suddenly realized I have far too much material for the book.

Where was his knife, upon which he relied? He had cut cheese for their noonday meal, and had packed the knife away with the cheese.Aillas said: ‘Sir, before we continue with this matter, may I...

Sometimes some of these little side excursions are useful and I manage to fit them in the book somewhere.

A reader is not supposed to be aware that someone’s written the story. He’s supposed to be completely immersed, submerged in the environment.

I haven’t sold to the movies. In other words, I haven’t gotten any enormous checks yet.

Twango’s hospitality, though largely symbolic, does him credit.

Well, I think everything I’ve ever read contributes to the background from which I write.

As I mentioned, I was a carpenter for a time.

I was an omnivore at reading, so that everything I ever read contributed.