Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day's receipts.

I tell you, lad, that men will believe is one says, The Gods say... They will believe if one says, I had a Vision... They will believe if one says, It was told me on a tablet of hidden gold... But, if one says, History teaches, then they will not believe.

Other people's risks are statistical. When it's your risk, your own child, it isn't statistical anymore.

The sooner we can separate salvageable skeptics from self-righteous absolutists, the sooner we can move along.

Conflict acting on intelligence creates imagination. Faced with conflict, creatures are forced to imagine what will happen, where the next threat will come from. If there has never been conflict, imagination never develops. Wits arise in answer to danger, to pain, to tragedy. No one ever got smarter eating easy apples.

The only people who have the long view are some scientists and some science fiction writers.

What do I have to say to the universe? A soul ought to have something to say to the universe if it's going to be immortal.

The sidesaddle was designed to protect a maiden's virginity, while risking the maiden's neck. Rather much for rather little, I thought.

Science fiction still is an idea genre.

It may be important to write a book that doesn't come up to what I would like to have rather than to write no book at all.

Men like to think well of themselves, and poets help them do it.

Creation has the truth written all over it - the age of the universe, the history of the world - but nine-tenths of mankind either don't know it or think it's a sham, because it isn't what their book or their prophet says, and it isn't cozy or manipulable enough.

We live in a time like dreaming.... The edges of our lives flutter and change as we watch them. Listen to the dream.

Whoever declares another heretic is himself a devil. Whoever places a relic or artifact above justice, kindness, mercy, or truth is himself a devil and the thing elevated is a work of evil magic.

I have always lived in a world in which I'm just a spot in history. My life is not the important point. I'm just part of the continuum, and that continuum, to me, is a marvelous thing. The history of life, and the history of the planet, should go on and on and on and on. I cannot conceive of anything in the universe that has more meaning than that.

To me, fantasy has always been the genre of escape, science fiction the genre of ideas. So if you can escape and have a little idea as well, maybe you have some kind of a cross-breed between the two.

The expression of divinity is in variety.

All around the Mediterranean you'll find cultures that believe men can't control themselves and shouldn't have to try.

To the Chasmites, truth is determined by how well it fits their expectations, and doesn't that sound familiar? They have consistently refused to have a god contest, and I fear they will have to encounter the godlet rather forcibly before they believe there is anything there at all.