Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.
An athlete may run ten thousand miles in order to prepare for one hundred yards. Quantity gives experience.
We can’t live alone in any society. But the best way to help a society or group, is to be the best individual in it that we can be.
Do what you love and love what you do. Don’t do anything for money. Everything should be for love.
I feel like I own all the kids in the world because, since I’ve never grown up myself, all my books are automatically for children.
That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.
Kids love me because I write stories that tell them about their capacity for evil. I’m one of the few writers who lets you cleanse yourself that way.
Man has always been half-monster, half-dreamer.
You fail only if you stop writing.
We must move into the universe. Mankind must save itself. We must escape the danger of war and politics. We must become astronauts and go out into the universe and discover the God in ourselves.
Science and religion have to go hand in hand with the mystery, because there’s a certain point beyond which you say, “There are no answers.”
If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.
The minute you get a religion you stop thinking. Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas.
People try to force things. It’s disastrous. Just leave your mind alone. Your intuition knows what it wants to write, so get out of the way.
Creativity is a continual surprise.
We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.
With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word ‘intellectual,’ of course, became the swear word it deserved to be.
I don’t think the robots are taking over. I think the men who play with toys have taken over. And if we don’t take the toys out of their hands, we’re fools.
Work is the only answer. I have three rules to live by. One, get your work done. If that doesn’t work, shut up and drink your gin. And when all else fails, run like hell!
You either have an imaginative mind or you don’t. All of my writing is God-given. I don’t write my stories – they write themselves.