“And the process of reading is such a private one. I once came into a room where a friend of mine was reading one of my books, and he clicked his tongue impatiently and shooed me off.”

Fiction basically is a form of gossip where you want to enter other people’s lives, the lives of people you don’t know, and you want to know what’s going to happen to them.

You will get what you want but you must want it and not just wish it.

I want my books to sell, to be read. I’m not interested in being obscure.

God save us from people who mean well.

My eyes close. I am here and not here. A waking nap? A flight to the end of the galaxy and perhaps a couple of billion light-years beyond?

I am certainly not allergic to causes – particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.

Dear though the reader might be, I’d be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.

Don’t put things off till it’s too late. You are the DJ of your fate.

Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.

In a painting, you can’t make out whether the artist painted the left eye before the right eye. In Chinese calligraphy, you can see the progression of the artist’s stroke.

For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.

I think if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And worth thinking about it as well.

I think goodness is about how person behaves to person, and also person to world, to nature.

You can talk good ideas out of existence.

God save us from people who mean well.

I don’t pick and choose subjects or settings; they pick and choose me.

It is stupid to grieve for the loss of a girl friend: you might never have met her, so you can do without her.

It is not hard to deceive ministers, relatives and friends. But it is impossible to deceive Christ.

A friend of mine always says, ‘Women love me for the man I’m not.’

My greatest talent is in my ability to choose good friends. It’s about as important as things get.

The friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.

Let us seek friends that will stir up our prayers, our Bible reading, our use of time, and our salvation.

Spock is definitely one of my best friends. When I put on those ears, it’s not like just another day. When I become Spock, that day becomes something special.

Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise–a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow.