The finest SF comes to grips with life's mysteries, with our resentments against our own natures and our limited societies. It does so by asking basic questions in the artful, liberating way that is unique to this form of writing. Echoes of it are fo...
While working in California, I met William Valentiner and Edgar Richardson of the Detroit Institute of Arts. I mentioned a desire which I had to paint a series of murals about the industries of the United States, a series that would constitute a new ...
Look, Mrs. McGillicuddy, it's not my fault your son jumped out a dorm room window on Christmas eve. I've written over fifty books as a Columbia professor, all right? You don't do that by holding hands with every at-risk undergraduate who says he's ho...
The concurrence of two elements is necessary for bringing about a revolution; and by revolution I do not mean the street warfare, nor the bloody conflicts of two parties—both being mere incidents dependent upon many circumstances—but the sudden o...
(In reply to the question, 'Would you like some suggestions for a plot for your next book?') There are three problems with getting plot suggestions from other people. The first is that ideas are the easy part of writing; finding the time and energy t...
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Un...
To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fun...
[Henry] James's critical genius comes out most tellingly in his mastery over, his baffling escape from, Ideas; a mastery and an escape which are perhaps the last test of a superior intelligence. [...] In England, ideas run wild and pasture on the emo...
Ideas define us, our past, our present, and most importantly, our future.
An idea? An idea won't get you nothing but another idea. You need money, cash, to make anything happen in this doggone world.
Well, I believe in the idea of 'normal' in the way that I believe in the idea of logic. Or the idea of character. All of these ethical constructs are just that: constructs.
Every suggested idea produces a corresponding physical reaction. Every idea constantly repeated ends by being engraved upon the brain, provoking the act which corresponds to that idea.
The core idea that underlies all of our democratic states, the core political idea, is this idea that it's not that one person is the sovereign; it's that all of the people are sovereign.
If you have a great idea, you should be able to communicate it as well. It's like the sound of one hand clapping. You have a great idea but aren't able to express it - well, how great was the idea?
What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, but it is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but the next day there is an idea. I find that incredibly exciting and conceptually actually remarkable.
Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.
The Inhumans, just as an idea - the idea that you were an ordinary horseman until you were exposed to this catalyst that is a very rare element - is a neat idea in and of itself.
Ideas and their creators run the world…one’s place in the world is due partially to the ideas that a culture has forced on one and/or the ideas that a person “freely” accepts and uses.
Good ideas come from everywhere. It's more important to recognize a good idea than to author it.
Ron: [Hermione is walking towards the werewolf Lupin] Hermione... bad idea... bad idea...
Every new day comes with a new joy, a new plan and a new life, all to be directed by the same old God! You need a new dream, a new passion and a new hope to pursue your old destiny!
