I Don't Think In Terms Of Optimism

When A Book's Pattern And The Shape Of Its Inner Life Is As Plain To The Reader As It Is To The Author -- Then Perhaps It Is Time To Throw The Book Aside, As Having Had Its Day, And Start Again On Something New.

It Was All Wrong, Ugly, Unhappy And Coloured With Cynicism, But Nothing Was Tragic, There Were No Moments That Could Change Anything Or Anybody. From Time To Time The Emotional Lightning Flashed And Showed A Landscape Of Private Misery, And Then — We Went On Dancing.

I Spend A Good Deal Of Time Wondering How We Will Seem To The People Who Come After Us. This Is Not An Idle Interest, But A Deliberate Attempt To Strengthen The Power Of That "other Eye," Which We Can Use To Judge Ourselves.

For Real Pleasure A Pleasure Resort Should Have No One In It But Its Legitimate Inhabitants, Oneself, And Perhaps One's Friends.

When I Was Starting Out, Science Fiction Was A Little Genre Over There, Which Only A Few People Read. But Now -- Where Are You Going To Put, For Example, Salman Rushdie? Or Any Of The South American Writers? Most People Get By Calling Them Magical Realists.