“Rome was mud and smoky skies; the rank smell of the Tiber and the exotically spiced cooking fires of a hundred different nationalities. Rome was white marble and gilding and heady perfumes; the blare of trumpets and the shrieking of market-women and the eternal, sub-aural hum of more people, speaking more languages than Gaius had ever imagined existed, crammed together on seven hills whose contours had long ago disappeared beneath this encrustation if humanity. Rome was the pulsing heart of the world.”

“Lancelot: Morgaine, Morgaine - kinswoman, I have never seen you weep.Morgaine: Are you like so many men, afraid of a woman's tears? (...)Lancelot: No (...) it makes them seem so much more real, so much more vulnerable - women who never weep frighten me, because I know they are stronger than I, and I am always a little afraid of what they will do.”

“The older I grow the more I become certain that it makes no difference what words we use to tell the same truths.”

“...gave so much time and thought to units - the Nation, the Race, Humanity-as-a-Whole - that it laid terrific burdens on humanity as individuals. To benefit the monster of Humanity-as-a-Whole, they even fought wars - which killed off humanity, individually, at a fearful rate.”

“... all the tears women shed, they leave no mark on the world ...”

“The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.”

“By and large, the kind of science fiction which makes tomorrow's headlines as near as this morning's coffee has enlarged popular awareness of the modern, miraculous world of science we live in. It has helped generations of young people feel at age with a changing world.But fashions change, old loves return, and now that Sputniks clutter up the sky with new and unfamiliar moons, the readers of science fiction are willing to wait to read tomorrow's headlines. Once again, I think, there is a place, a wish, a need for the wonder and color of the world way out. The world beyond the stars. The world we won't live to see. That is why I wrote The Door Through Space.”