“There is something funny about the human condition, and civilized intelligence makes fun of its own ideas.”

“But I think you can make fun of anything as long as it's funny enough.”

“...genius, having the widest experience of the human intelligence, can best understand the ideas most directly in opposition to those which form the foundation of its own works.”

“Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. ...Science fiction is central to everything we've ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don't know what they're talking about.”

“Everybody makes their own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it isn't fun. It's entertainment.”

“We were created to be fully human - a lifetime effort - and using our minds intelligently and reverently is essential to full humanhood. But Rushdie talks throughout of making something sacred, whereas there is another kind of sacrality that exists of its own right.”