Understand, I had absolutely no interest in writing; I wanted to be a Writer.

Comic books were just the means for me to tell the story.

No matter how nice the company one might be with, however, it is never pleasant to have a rifle pointed at one’s back.

I try to write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are.

I don’t see any kind of mirror of power, male power, that is, as a form of liberation. I don’t believe in an eye for an eye. I don’t believe this is truly freedom.

What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?

Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!

Practice Golden-Rule 1 of Management in everything you do. Manage others the way you would like to be managed.

People were walking and they had formed the car pools. People were driving folks to work. Others were walking to work, where it wasn’t too far.

I personally am not conscious of my accent.

I started writing seriously about 1960, at the fairly advanced age of 30.

I’ve wanted somehow to convey to you the sensations – the atmospheric pressure, you might say – of what it is to be seriously a long-term prisoner in an American prison.

Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.

I’m working seven days a week in the fall. I couldn’t possibly keep that up. This is only for the fall. In the last couple of years I’ve tended to do most of my serious...

When we think of the state of the economy, we are not thinking in terms of money flow. We are thinking in terms of the effect on everyday lives of people.

Everything I write comes from my childhood in one way or another. I am forever drawing on the sense of mystery and wonder and possibility that pervaded that time of my life.

A joke is not a thing but a process, a trick you play on the listener’s mind. You start him off toward a plausible goal, and then by a sudden twist you land him nowhere...

I was surprised that my wife thought it was a good idea, then again with my agent, another woman, then my editor, another woman – in spite of the fact that all three of them...

The object of the law of value is to elucidate the actual exchange relations of commodities.

Owning a home is a keystone of wealth… both financial affluence and emotional security.

Revenge only engenders violence, not clarity and true peace. I think liberation must come from within.

Human folly does not impede the turning of the stars.

One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything...

People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.

Anyone nit-picking enough to write a letter of correction to an editor doubtless deserves the error that provoked it.

Land of opportunity, land for the huddled masses where would the opportunity have been without the genocide of those Old Guard, bristling Indian tribes?

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.