“Omni is not a science magazine. It is a magazine about the future…Omni was sui generis. Although there were plenty of science magazines over the years…Omni was the first magazine to slant all its pieces toward the future. It was fun to read and gorgeous to look at.”

Feeding the starving poor only increases their number.

A new space race has begun, and most Americans are not even aware of it. This race is not [about] political prestige or military power. This new race involves the whole human species in a contest against time.

The problem is that Americans would like to be independent of the rest of the world … Except the world ain’t that way. Trying to be independent of the rest of the world is to commit suicide.

The Old Ones knew that life is not rare, but precious; not fragile, but vulnerable. Life is as deep as the seas in which it was born, as strong as the mountains that give it shelter, as universal as the stars themselves.

Red tape has killed more people than bullets.

Don’t ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story.

My first published novel was written for teenagers, and there were rules laid down by the publisher: no sex, no smoking, no swearing. I blew up entire solar systems, I consigned billions of people to horrible death; they didn’t seem to mind that at all. But no hanky-panky.

As long as we’re tied to Middle Eastern oil we’re tied to Middle Eastern politics. We’re hostages to the terrorists and nutcases who want to wipe out Israel and the United States because we support Israel.

When I started understanding how science works, it occurred to me that there just is no evidence that there is a God.

The writer works on the inside and the critic works on the outside. I don’t know what it looks like on the outside, sometimes. It’s not that I’m not interested-it’s not where I live. I live inside the story.

The one thing you can rely on is if you get disturbed halfway through a painting and it looks a bit naff, then someone will preserve that piece, remove it and a few months later it’ll be paraded round Sotheby’s by people wearing white gloves.

Instead of being taught independence, energy, and enterprise, our youth today is taught to look for security.

My country and me, we are part of this region, we’re not separated. We cannot discuss it as Syria or as me ; it should be as part, as a whole, as comprehensive. That’s how we have to look at it.

A lot of time mistakes are very interesting – you look for the behaviour that’s not the one you expect.

Well, wolves will pretty rarely hunt. You’re vulnerable if you’re on your own or injured. But for lone wolves, get up high, show them that you’re not injured, face ’em off, be authoritarian with it, and look ’em in the eye.

I do know when you look at some ballplayer and all of a sudden he is the size of a truck something is wrong.

Maybe Rachel was right all along. Maybe the past is past, history is history, and you just push it aside and look for the future.