“...science fiction is something that could happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to. Fantasy is something that couldn't happen - though often you only wish that it could.”

“Much blood has also been spilled on the carpet in attempts to distinguish between science fiction and fantasy. I have suggested an operational definition: science fiction is something that COULD happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to. Fantasy is something that COULDN'T happen - though often you only wish that it could.”

“But I said that you could still want something that is very unlikely to happen.”

“When you wish for something over and over again and it doesn't come true, something else happens; not only do you give up, but you resent your wish and you resent wishing.”

“I don't mind nothing happening in a book, but nothing happening in a phony way--characters saying things people never say, doing jobs that don't fit, the whole works--is simply asking too much of a reader. Something happening in a phony way must beat nothing happening in a phony way every time, right? I mean, you could prove that, mathematically, in an equation, and you can't often apply science to literature.”

“If you didn't remember something happening, was it because it never had happened? Or because you wished it hadn't?”