I would normally never set out to write a trilogy.

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.

If you aren't cute, you may as well be clever.

There is wisdom in climbing mountains... For they teach us how truly small we are.

If there is a true universal mind, must it be sane?

I love being a Go-Go. It definitely has its ups and downs, and we have a very intense energy with each other.

It's nice when you work with someone who has an eye for clothes and will show what you've given them.

Let the music defuse all the tension.

All we can do is search for the falsity content in our best theory.

When government is... bailing out banks... we have every good reason to be alarmed.

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

I saw it his eyes. I felt it when he touched me.