Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.

From my close observation of writers… they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

Science and fiction both begin with similar questions: What if? Why? How does it all work? But they focus on different areas of life on earth.

I hope to build a reputation as a science-fiction writer. That’s the pitch. We’ll see.

I’m not going to stop having problems.

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

The ‚free-floating intellectual‘ may occupy himself with problems because of their inherent interest and importance, perhaps to little effect.

I read ‚The High Frontier‘ in high school. I read it multiple times, and I was already primed. As soon as I read it, it made sense to me. It seemed very clear that planetary surfaces were not the right place for an expanding civilization inside our solar system.

Today, writers want to impress other writers.

We’ve gotta become the Martians. I’m a Martian – I tell you to become Martians. And we’ve gotta go to Mars and civilize Mars and build a whole civilization on Mars and then move out, 300 years from now into the universe. And when we do that, we have a chance of living forever.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

When I die, I’m gonna leave my body to science fiction.

Millions of students now, in all the schools of America, are reading science fiction and especially, thank God, ‚The Martian Chronicles.‘

Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‚security,‘ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists – they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies.

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses.

Today I continue with my science-fiction reading habit and find it very mind-expanding. Always makes me think.

Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.

The first stories I wrote when I was 12 were about Mars and landing on Mars.

My business is to prevent the future.

Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.

Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates.

Writers speak stench.

You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now.

I don’t even like showing my stuff to publishers and editors much.

Football coaches don’t have real problems.

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.

If we want to travel into the future, we just need to go fast. Really fast. And I think the only way we’re ever likely to do that is by going into space.

A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible.

Our future cannot depend on the government alone. The ultimate solutions lie in the attitudes and the actions of the American people.

Writers have to put up with this editor thing; it is ageless and eternal and wrong.

Writers are lampposts and critics are dogs. Ask lampposts what they think about dogs. Does the dog hurt the lamppost?

When I worked on a magazine, I learned that there are many, many writers writing that can’t write at all; and they keep on writing all the cliches and bromides and 1890 plots, and poems about Spring and poems about Love, and poems they think are modern because they are done in slang or staccato style, or written with all the ‚i’s‘ small.

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong – these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they’re just infested with lots of stuff.

If I pick up a book with spaceships on the cover, I want spaceships. If I see one with dragons, I want there to be dragons inside the book. Proper labeling. Ethical labeling. I don’t want to open up my cornflakes and find that they’re full of pebbles… You need to respect the reader enough not to call it something it isn’t.

When I was seven or eight years old, I began to read the science-fiction magazines that were brought by guests into my grandparents‘ boarding house in Waukegan, Illinois. Those were the years when Hugo Gernsback was publishing ‚Amazing Stories,‘ with vivid, appallingly imaginative cover paintings that fed my hungry imagination.

He who could foresee affairs three days in advance would be rich for thousands of years.

When I die, I’m leaving my body to science fiction.

I hate to tell you this, but you will never actually go to a galaxy far, far away and encounter Darth Vader. That’s science fiction; it isn’t going to happen.

I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.

I was afraid that science-fiction buffs and everybody would say things like, ‚You know, there’s no sound in outer space.‘

I believe in love at first sight. You want that connection, and then you want some problems.

I think it would be interesting if old people got anti-Alzheimer’s disease where they slowly began to recover other people’s lost memories.

Only the supernatural love of God through changed lives can solve the problems that we face in our world.

When I was a kid, I read the science-fiction shelves, and I read the fantasy shelves.

China has many successful entrepreneurs and business people. I hope that more people of insight will put their talents to work to improve the lives of poor people in China and around the world, and seek solutions for them.

My discovery that black holes emit radiation raised serious problems of consistency with the rest of physics. I have now resolved these problems, but the answer turned out to be not what I expected.

The ideas associated with the problems of the development of science, as far as I can see by looking around me, are not of the kind that everyone appreciates.

It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.

The solutions to our problems are and always will be based upon universal, timeless, self-evident principles common to every enduring, prospering society throughout history.

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.

I was a very keen reader of science fiction, and during the time I was going to libraries, it was good, written by people who knew their science.

I got into science fiction by being interested in astronomy first.

Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone.

Change is inevitable. Change is constant.

I’ve only written one science-fiction book: ‚Fahrenheit 451.‘ That book is a book based on real facts and my hatred of people who destroy books.