Larry Niven
Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen.Collection: Space
The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program.Collection: Space
I'd visit the near future, close enough that someone might want to talk to Larry Niven and can figure out the language; distant enough to get me decent medical techniques and a ticket to the Moon.Collection: Medical
Everything starts as somebody's daydream.
In hindsight it may even seem inevitable that a socialist society will starve when it runs out of capitalists.
The human species really could have faced global thermonuclear war. During seventy years of Cold War we grew used to it.
We need to take command of the solar system to gain that wealth, and to escape the sea of paper our government is becoming, and for some decent chance of stopping a Dinosaur Killer asteroid.
I've got five or six unpublished stories kicking around looking for somebody to buy them.
We're looking as far ahead as we can, and we don't get penalized for mistakes.
I do suspect that privacy was a passing fad.
Anything beats an expensive stack of paper.
I love superconductors.
I'm not predicting; I just love playing with superconductors.
We should not have assumed that a political space station could be built.
In general, I don't know when inspiration will pop up.
My problem with new writers is that it takes me five or six years to memorise the right names.
Bruce Sterling is one terrific writer and he's relatively new, but I don't know how long he's been doing it; he probably doesn't need the publicity anymore!
SF isn't a genre; SF is the matrix in which genres are embedded, and because the SF field is never going in any one direction at any one time, there is hardly a way to cut it off.
As for AIDS, it's a plague. We are human, we get plagues. They come along every so often, kill off two thirds of the population; in the next generation it's a quarter; after that it's a childhood disease.
I do not believe they've run out of surprises.
I don't have a strong interest in history.
I never got good at predicting what millions of people will suddenly decide is rational.
I'd repair our education system or replace it with something that works.
I've spent a lot of my life among people brighter than myself.
But... watching Steven Barnes taught me to treat my life like an art form.
And every friend I've got has been writing Mars stories. It was pretty clear I'd never catch up.
Treat your life like something to be sculpted.
The reader has certain rights. He bought your story. Think of this as an implicit contract. He's entitled to be entertained, instructed, amused; maybe all three. If he quits in the middle, or puts the book down feeling his time has been wasted, you're in violation.Collection: Book
Ethics change with technology.Collection: Technology
Half of wisdom is learning what to unlearn.Collection: Half
The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.Collection: Fool
There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is 'idiot'.Collection: Mistake
Anything you don't understand is dangerous until you do understand it.Collection: Dangerous
There is no cause so good or noble that it will not attract fuggheads; and the fuggheads will get all the press.Collection: Political
In the world of words the imagination is one of the forces of nature.Collection: Writing
That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.Collection: Hate
Intelligence is just a tool to be used toward a goal, and goals are not always chosen intelligently.Collection: Goal
Sometimes there's no point in giving up.Collection: Giving Up
There were timelines branching and branching, a mega-universe of universes, millions more every minute. Billions? Trillions? The universe split every time someone made a decision. Split, so that every decision ever made could go both ways. Every choice made by every man, woman, and child was reversed in the universe next door.Collection: Children
You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.Collection: Writing
The Unexpected always comes at the most awkward times.Collection: Awkward
We learn only to ask more questions.Collection: Asks
Never fire a laser at a mirror.Collection: Fire
One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better.Collection: Decision
Fear is the brother of hate.Collection: Brother
Any damn fool can predict the past.Collection: Past
Once every hundred years, the Los Angeles smog rolls away for a single night, leaving the air as clean as interstellar space. That way the gods can see if Los Angeles is still there. If it is, they roll the smog back so they won't have to look at it.Collection: Travel
It's very difficult for a black man to get out of South-Central Los Angeles, and get out civilized....The only men I know who have escaped, all began reading Robert Heinlein at age ten.Collection: Reading
It is a cardinal sin to bore the reader.Collection: Writing
The Product of Freedom and Security is a constant (F X S = k). Giving up freedom for security is beginning to look naive.Collection: Giving Up