“Basically, fiction is people. You can't write fiction about ideas.”

“We are now in a position to determine just what sort of science fiction story this really is.”

“Science fiction, outside of poetry, is the only literary field which has no limits, no parameters whatsoever.”

“Create a world in which these things do or do not exist, or in which they are extended in some way. Test reality against this fiction. The reader will recognize the world that you're talking about, even though it may be another one altogether”

“A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content.”

“Just think about it," he said softly. "You can do practically anything. You can have practically everything. And none of it will keep you from being alone.""Shut up shut up...Everybody's alone."He nodded. "But some people learn how to live with it.”

“A billion and a half human souls, who had been given the techniques of music and the graphic arts, and the theory of technology, now had the others: philosophy and logic and love; sympathy, empathy, forbearance, unity, in the idea of their species rather than in their obedience; membership in harmony with all life everywhere.A people with such feelings and their derived skills cannot be slaves. As the light burst upon them, there was only one concentration possible to each of them—to be free, and the accomplished feeling of being free. As each found it, he was an expert in freedom, and expert succeeded expert, transcended expert, until (in a moment) a billion and a half human souls had no greater skill than the talent of freedom.”