Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Other seasons come abruptly but ask so little when they do. Winter is the only one that has to be relearned.
You may stifle your creativity by learning too much about processes that should be spontaneous and automatic.
Ah, but I am more perceptive than most of the universe. Especially the parts of the universe that are vacuum.
Interference between universes at the quantum level means that information transfer takes place between them.
There is no idea so stupid or hackneyed that a sufficiently-talented writer can't get a good story out of it.
To deliver vast new resources to humanity, we must pioneer and occupy the moon, Mars, and perhaps even beyond.
That's the great thing about doing good: Anyone can do it, any time, no waiting periods or batteries required.
If there is no willingness to use force to defend civil society, it's civil society that goes away, not force.
The world is neither running down nor deterministic, and a strict division of order versus chaos is just wrong.
Which isn't the truth, you understand. At least you understand that in your head...but not always in your heart.
The words are not mere words. They are the breath and mind, perhaps even the soul, of the person who is reading.
Even after all these years, finding a really first-rate story is still a thrill, one I want to share with others.
We're all living on borrowed time. The trick is to come up with works of sufficient interest to pay off the debt.
I'm very happy that the New York Times has spoken well of my stuff; who wouldn't be? But it's not a choice I made.
People have no tolerance. They think all bugs are bad. It's the American way. If you don't like something, kill it.
We're so saturated with propaganda every way you look that we don't notice it. But when it isn't there, you notice.
A view of nature as dense and nonlinear is at the core of our contemporary science. Process and order emerge subtly.
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
One of the great rewards of a writer's life is that it lets you read all the books you want to without feeling guilty.
Horror is edgier. Dark fantasy feels mushier to me. Finding the difference - it's an instinct. And they overlap a lot.
Fandom grew first through individual correspondence. It was cheap and quick, continent-wide contact for a penny stamp.
Once you've grown up in space, moving on means moving out, not going back to Earth. Nobody wants to be a groundpounder.
There are people who believe in an absolutely transparent prose; with every respect for clarity of expression, I don't.
Make everybody fall out of the plane first, and then explain who they were and why they were in the plane to begin with.
Creating the fictional background for a game world isn't significantly different from creating a background for fiction.
Man is by nature restless. When left too long in one place he will inevitably grow bored, unmotivated, and unproductive.
My father once told me that I have a mind like a lint trap - I pull stuff out of everything, and a lot of it just clings.
Blaming society makes it awfully easy for a person of weak character to shrug off his own responsibility for his actions.
Write from the soul, not from some notion what you think the marketplace wants. The market is fickle; the soul is eternal.
Peter Watts delivers-solid, inventive hard sf about the deep sea, but as we've never seen before. This moves like the wind.
Kids don't have ruts yet that adults have carved into their minds. They're born logical. Crooked thinking has to be taught.
No-one works for money alone and tapping into what people want from their careers and what they have to offer is essential.
People have a reservoir of talent worth discovering. They just have to be given the opportunity to discover it in themselves
I hate being bored when I read a story. Even a well-trod theme can be made fresh by a different perspective or fresh writing.
I do not care about the greatest good for the greatest number . . . Most people are poop-heads I do not care about them at all.
Lawyers will always buckle under to something, whether its bribes, violence, court orders, or the weight of their own bullshit.
On Earth they've forgotten how to make everything except money. But what good is it, if there's nothing worthwhile left to buy?
For at the center of all spiritual traditions is the beacon of a truly radical proposal: Open your heart to everybody. Everybody.
In brief, I spend half my time trying to learn the secrets of other writers - to apply them to the expression of my own thoughts.
I believe God put that itchy spot on our backs just exactly where we can't reach it in order to encourage us be nice to each other.
The way past despair and false hope is just letting go. It doesn't improve your odds of survival, but it doesn't waste mental energy.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are full of doubts.
Human nature demands recognition. Without it, people lose their sense of purpose and become dissatisfied, restless, and unproductive.
I am generally way out of touch with trends, except now and then I am surprised to find myself leading one, like sympathetic vampires.
Sometimes writers say true things about the overall nature of publicity, promotion, and the publishing industry; but alas, not always.
I've probably read more bad science fiction than anyone else alive. But I've also read more good science fiction than anyone else alive.
People are responsible adults at home. Why do we suddenly transform them into adolescents with no freedom when they reach the workplace?
I wrote speculative fiction because I loved to read it, and thought I could do better than some of the people who were getting published.
Like immense time-binding discussions, genres allow ideas to be developed and traded, and for variations to be spun down through decades.
True twins share womb chemistry and endure many fateful slings and arrows together. The fabled connection between twins is true in my case.