“...it depends on whose reality you're using for rules. You just have to remember that, and then you can see that nothing should be taken absolutely seriously. Personally, I always like to use my own reality as a standard.”

“So every person sets up his own rules, and then uses them to judge everybody else. You just have to realize that.There is no real normal. You have to just decide what you believe. And stay open to new ideas. For the time being I am using my own concept of reality as a guide." Ginny to Caulder and Micheal”

“I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards. Okay, so I should revise my standards; I'm out of step. I should yield to reality. I have never yielded to reality. That's what SF is all about. If you wish to yield to reality, go read Philip Roth; read the New York literary establishment mainstream bestselling writers….This is why I love SF. I love to read it; I love to write it. The SF writer sees not just possibilities but wild possibilities. It's not just 'What if' - it's 'My God; what if' - in frenzy and hysteria. The Martians are always coming.”

“Expectations should not always be taken as reality; because you never know when you will be disappointed.”

“In the inner life, if there is no sincerity, nothing can be achieved. And to whom are you being sincere? You are being sincere to yourself. You have a higher reality and you have a lower reality. When you become sincere, immediately you pull your lower reality up to your higher reality. Just like a magnet, your higher reality pulls up your lower reality so that it can take shelter in the higher reality.”

“To come to know that nothing is good, nothing is bad, is a turning point; it is a conversion. You start looking in; the outside reality loses meaning. The social reality is a fiction, a beautiful drama; you can participate in it, but then you don’t take it seriously. It is just a role to be played; play it as beautifully, as efficiently, as possible. But don’t take it seriously, it has nothing of the ultimate in it.”