Writer

No, I think the future of humanity will be like the past, we'll do what we've always done and there will still be human beings. Granted, there will always be people doing something different and there are a lot of possibilities.

Every story I write adds to me a little, changes me a little, forces me to reexamine an attitude or belief, causes me to research and learn, helps me to understand people and grow.

Beware, all too often we say what we hear others say. We think what we are told that we think. We see what we are permitted to see. Worse, we see what we are told that we see.

Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it.

And by the way, I wanted to point out that Kindred is not science fiction. You'll note there's no science in it. It's a kind of grim fantasy.

We are a naturally hierarchical species.

Here I was into astronomy, and here into anthropology, and there I go into geology. It was much more fun to be able to research and write about whatever I wanted to.

Once you grow past Mommy and Daddy coming running when you're hurt, you're really on your own. You're alone, and there's no one to help you.

In countries where there are no racial differences or no religious differences, people find other reasons to set aside one certain group of people and generally spit in their direction.

Getting your writing criticized can be a lot like getting skinned, and you respond to it just as enthusiastically.

My race and sex had a great deal more to do with what people believed I could do than with what I actually could do.

A workshop is a way of renting an audience, and making sure you're communicating what you think you're communicating. It's so easy as a young writer to think you're been very clear when in fact you haven't.

Writing has been as difficult for me as for people who don't like to write and as little fun.

Most of us, if we're not careful, tend to dehumanize the enemy.

Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if you're writing about science, you have to first learn what you're writing about.

Science fiction is not formulaic.

I don't know how much of a market there is for space opera. Just because it's in the movies doesn't mean magazines are buying it.

I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time.

Delusional pain hurts just as much as pain from actual trauma. So what if it's all in your head?

I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.