Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art.

To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.

There have been only 268 of the past 3,421 years free of war.

We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours; we are the not the best informed as the events of the last sixty centuries.

There are loads of sociopolitical, racial, class and future-planet situations that really interest me, but I'm not really interested in making a film about them in a film that feels like reality because people view that in a different way. I like using science fiction to talk about subjects through the veneer of science fiction.

I had always shown childhood as something difficult, something you want to get the hell out of, but now I wanted to do a story that was the opposite, about that moment in time when you're in that world of discovery, doing what you want to do. That fleeting moment when you're in your zone.

I find the attempt to find things out, which scientists are possessed by, to be as human as breathing, or feeding, or sex. And so the science has to be in the novels as science and not just as metaphors.

When they're watching musicals, I've heard people say, 'That's not realistic! Why would they just start singing?' But, I think they can believe it if they try! I mean, science fiction requires a suspension of disbelief, but people allow themselves to sit back and enjoy it anyway.