But it is a delightful challenge to try to depict interesting aliens.

You don't have conversations with microprocessors. You tell them what to do, then helplessly watch the disaster when they take you literally!

When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.

The village is coming back, like it or not.

In all of history, we have found just one cure for error—a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism.

Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses?

If you believe you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego.

The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal.

My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.

But honestly, if you do a rigorous survey of my work, I'll bet you'll find that biology is a theme far more often than physical science.

Art should be for sale. The artist should not.

We are never so free as when we own our sacred serfdom...

If it's on Facebook, it all looks the same.

I've always known I wanted a family.

Like many indelible family memories, carving a pumpkin begins with someone grabbing a really sharp knife.

I'm still a farm boy at heart. If I hadn't suffered from asthma as a child, I would be a farmer today.

I come across children who sometimes come up and say such nice things and it motivates you so much. They look up to you and they would sometimes say something so nice, something so beautiful.

I missed him. Love, I realized, was something your spine memorized. There was nothing you could do about that.

Screenplays are not works of art. They are invitations to others to collaborate on a work of art.

True singing is a different breath, about nothing.