Eurasia ended up with the most domesticated animal species in part because it’s the world’s largest land mass and offered the most wild species to begin with.

The Berserkers have been with me for about forty years, and we’re not done yet.

My eyes, my brain seek out escape routes wherever I am sent.

Being an only child and losing both my parents at an early age, I have found that the friends I have made over the years are the people who help me get through life, good...

Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keeps friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the...

I feel not unlike a small boy, waking from a bad dream to find reality not much of an improvement.

I think of myself as an enormously lucky person.

Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John.

People keep saying, ‘Oh, you’re getting all these great reviews, that must make you really happy.’ I guess it does, but mostly it’s just a relief.

I’m told my SF is of the hard variety and my Fantasy is romantic but hopefully all the characters are strong and the plots are lively.

How do you grow up in the shadow of a guy-I want to talk about the movie in a second-but how do you grow up in the shadow of a guy who really is a...

In the last James Bond movie, the villain was a culture captain, a tycoon of culture, a Murdoch figure. It’s not as if people don’t know what is going on.

You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.

Whatever you dwell on in the conscious grows in your experience.

You know, I had spoke to Pugh earlier about joining the organization. Pugh told me he wasn’t going to have anything to do with that mess.

We study the injustices of history for the same reason that we study genocide, and for the same reason that psychologists study the minds of murderers and rapists… to understand how those evil things came...

Actually ideas are everywhere. It’s the paperwork, that is, sitting down and thinking them into a coherent story, trying to find just the right words, that can and usually does get to be labor.

Try out your ideas by visualizing them in action.

Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one.

I behaved poorly by starting this whole thing and I made some mistakes in dealing with it, and they made some mistakes in dealing with me, and taking down all my stuff was probably one...

There is so much that we need to do for our country. I don’t think that we can afford to wait.

Most publishers seem very reluctant to publish short story collections at all; they bring them out in paperback, often disguised as novels.

Humor is the instinct for taking pain playfully.

Every time another review comes out I let out a deep breath.

Save your rejections so that later when you are famous you can show them to people and laugh.

As far as the men who are running for president are concerned, they aren’t even people I would date.

I have to understand what my strengths and limitations are, and work from a true place. I try to do this as best I can while still protecting my writer self, which more than ever...

Play fair. Don’t hit people. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.

There’s no abiding success without commitment.

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

They just didn’t have the sense of the strength of their vote. Just thought it wasn’t necessary.

Measles and TB evolved from diseases of our cattle, influenza from a disease of pigs, and smallpox possibly from a disease of camels. The Americas had very few native domesticated animal species from which humans...

I suspect that writer’s block afflicts mainly people who have some stable and ample source of income outside of writing. So far it hasn’t been a problem.

One morning I woke up and was plunged into psychological shock. I had forgotten I was free.

The worst of doing one’s duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else.

Inevitably, these sorts of things are going to come back to blow up in people’s faces.

Sanctions and boycotts would be tied to serious political dialogue.

Hands down, the biggest thrill is to get a letter from a kid saying, I loved your book. Will you write me another one?

I don’t know why it is we are in such a hurry to get up when we fall down. You might think we would lie there and rest for a while.

I was thinking, too, of Superman and his fortress of solitude.

Value is consequently the necessary theoretical starting point whence we can elucidate the peculiar phenomenon of prices resulting from capitalist competition.

A big part of financial freedom is having your heart and mind free from worry about the what-ifs of life.

Well, I’m Buddhist, Ray, and so part of my Buddhism has allowed me to look a little more deeply at people and the events in my life that created me. And I think a lot...

To be or not to be isn’t the question. The question is how to prolong being.

We aren’t in an information age, we are in an entertainment age.

If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of...

Our technological powers increase, but the side effects and potential hazards also escalate.

Our forefathers made one mistake. What they should have fought for was representation without taxation.

We’re uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It’s classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific.

The comments I most appreciate come from ordinary readers who’ve happened on one of my books at some time of stress in their lives, and who actually credit the book with helping them through a...