One of life's joys was to have friends who gave you reality checks...who would call you on your crap before it rose so high you drowned in it.

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.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

Love is always fresh as morning dew.

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

Property is theft. Nobody "owns" anything. When you die, it all stays here.

The way I think about the practicing, it is my undercover work.

Nothing is more disgraceful than insincerity.

Memorizing a playbook is like memorizing a script. When they change the script at the last minute it's like changing a play in a game.

My Dad always told me that casting agencies are like artists picturing their paintings in their mind. They know what they want for a role and not to take it too seriously [if I dont get the part].

It isn't about the words you say. It's about the energetic message you send.

One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute.