Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books...

When Douglas walked, his mind ran, when he ran, his mind walked.

And then, to the sound of death, the sound of the jets cutting the sky in two black pieces beyond the horizon, he would lie in the loft, hidden and safe, watching those strange new...

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.

I can’t find her.”Then… some idiot turned on the lights.(“The October Game”)

And what lights the sun? Its own fire. And the sun goes on, day after day, burning and burning. The sun and time. The sun and time and burning. Burning. The river bobbled him along...

If you read fast and read all, maybe some of the sand will stay in the sieve.

We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of on good rain and black loam.

It takes writing a billion bad words before you get to the good ones.

There was a crash like the falling parts of a dream fashioned out of warped glass, mirrors, and crystal prisms.

I always figured we were born to fly, one way or other, so I couldn’t stand most men shuffling along with all the iron of the earth in their blood. I never met a man...

I was not predicting the future, I was trying to prevent it.

Do you ever wonder if–well, if there are people living on the third planet?”The third planet is incapable of supporting life,’ stated the husband patiently. ‘Our scientists have said there’s far too much oxygen in...

He knew what the wind was doing to them, where it was taking them, to all the secret places that were never so secret again in life.

If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.

In quickness is truth. The more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only...

I want to hold onto this funny thing. God, it’s gotten big on me. I don’t know what it is. I’m so damned unhappy, I’m so mad, and I don’t know why. I feel like...

I believe in having fun first, and along the way, if you teach people, if you influence people, well and good.

Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all.

The father hesitated only a moment. He felt the vague pain in his chest. If I run, he thought, what will happen? Is Death important? No. Everything that happens before Death is what counts. And...

They knew how to live with nature and get along with nature. They didn’t try too hard to be all men and no animal. That’s the mistake we made when Darwin showed up. We embraced...

A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind. Who knows who might be the target of a well-read man?

You don’t question Providence. If you can’t have the reality, a dream is just as good.

School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing...

It’s poor judgment’, said Grandpa ‘to call anything by a name. We don’t know what a hobgoblin or a vampire or a troll is. Could be lots of things. You can’t heave them into categories...

Looking at her in the hospital he had thought, I don’t know you, who you are, does it matter if we live or die?

If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.

We’re all watching each other, so there’s no chance for censorship. The main problem is the idiot TV. If you watch local news, your head will turn to mush.

The huge round lunar clock was a gristmill. Shake down all the grains of Time—the big grains of centuries, and the small grains of years, and the tiny grains of hours and minutes—and the clock...

It is a wise writer who knows his own subconscious.

But you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can’t last.

The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressure; there was always a minority afraid...

Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal.And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day, every day,...

Jump and let’s build our wings on the way down

Love what you do and do what you love. Don’t listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. You do what you want, what you love. Imagination should be the center of...

Let me alone,” said Mildred”Let you alone!” He almost cried out with laughter. “Letting you alone is easy, but how can I leave myself alone? That’s what’s wrong. We need not to be let alone....

God bless the lawn mower, he thought. Who was the fool who made January first New Year’s Day? No, they should set a man to watch the grasses across a million Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa...

She was a wonderful poet, a good short-story writer and a fine novelist.

And then there is that day when all around,all around you hear the dropping of the apples, oneby one, from the trees. At first it is one here and one there,and then it is three...

Odio a un romano llamado Status Quo, me decía, llénate los ojos de asombro, vive como si fueras a morir en los próximos diez segundos. Observa el universo. Es más fantástico que cualquier sueño construido...

They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle.

And wasn’t it this bright boy you selected for beating and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone...

Think of Shakespeare and Melville and you think of thunder, lightning, wind. They all knew the joy of creating in large or small forms, on unlimited or restricted canvases. These are the children of the...

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

The ability to “fantasize” is the ability to survive. It’s wonderful to speak about this subject because there have been so many wrong-headed people dealing with it…. The so-called realists are trying to drive us...

Who wants to see the Future, who ever does? A man can face the Past, but to think – the pillars crumbled, you say? And the sea empty, and the canals dry, and the maidens...

Science fiction is the fiction of ideas. 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. Science...

You’re afraid of making mistakes. Don’t be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people’s faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty...

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.