Fountain of youth' is actually kind of ambiguous - does it mean a way to make everyone healthy and let them live indefinitely? Or are we talking about something that would reset you physically to the way you were in your youth, which for various reasons not all of us would be enthused about?

I've been surprised at the number of people who were really angry that I tried to convey gender neutrality by using a gendered pronoun.

I suspect that we get used to particular sorts of stories being presented in particular sorts of ways, and we're so used to interpreting them and understanding what it is they're doing that we think of those forms and styles as faithful, complete depictions of reality.

Science fiction in particular is often assumed to be about the future, or about some abstract technological or philosophical idea, or just about 'adventure,' but writers can't build worlds out of nothing. We use bits and pieces of the real world to assemble our fictional ones.

My history is pretty different from the history of most professors. I was a high school dropout. I dropped out and became a science fiction writer.

Grades can matter, especially for those students and parents who live for the next round of applications to graduate or professional schools. But there's a problem with the grade emphasis. Math or science graduates earn more than students majoring in the humanities.

The man of science, like the man of letters, is too apt to view mankind only in the abstract, selecting in his consideration only a single side of our complex and many-sided being.

I just went to the hobby shop and got an electricity kit and a chemistry kit, and I'm really excited to do experiments like squeezing an egg into a bottle and growing crystals. I'm really getting into hobbies.