“Sometimes people say that we're living in the future, and time's up for science fiction, but I think that never will be, because science fiction really isn't about the future. It's about change and present-day concerns”

“Science fiction inspires scientists, but it doesn't exist to dictate what our future should look like. Great science fiction is fun to read and it makes you think, period. Claiming anything more than that is dicey. Grand visions of the future were more prevalent in the golden-age science fiction, but all fiction is a reflection of the current times. As science moves more quickly, the horizon of science fiction tends to recede closer to the present.”

“Well, don't stand about like that, man; if you're no use you're certainly no ornament. Bring that in and tell me what it says.”

“Science fiction is the arena of the not-yet, and every science fiction story has this element of not-yet-ness — usually a bit of technology or a scientific discovery that we don't know about in the real world of the present but that might be a possibility in the future.”

“The past is a distraction, a source of envy, enmity, bitterness. Only the present matters, for only in the present can we shape the future.Cut loose the past; it is dead weight.Let the Extirpation continue. Let it never end.”

“When you get close enough to someone you're never really alone again.”

“General fiction is pretty much about ways that people get into problems and screw their lives up. Science fiction is about everything else.”