These are just the tip of the iceberg, because I read and read and read. I read everything.

Right now I'm so old that if I had a big gush of money, I don't know what I'd do with it. I don't travel anymore. I don't need anything, don't want anything. I'd give it to my son, I guess, and let him enjoy it.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, because I read and read and read. I read everything.

I was a carpenter for a time and everybody watches what you do.

Sometimes some of these little side excursions are useful and I manage to fit them in the book somewhere.

I'd never been published when I was young.

But I'm so slow on it because I find it terribly hard writing blind on computers. The computer speaks to me, but it's just so slow, I'm so terribly slow using it.

A reader is not supposed to be aware that someone's written the story. He's supposed to be completely immersed, submerged in the environment.

I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell.

There was a writer in the '20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn't tell you what it was.

I do read books. I suppose it's more or less the same thing, but at least I'm alone and I'm an individual. I can stop anytime I want, which I frequently do.

I haven't been to a movie since somebody gave me free tickets to Star Wars, which I went to.

I never worked in an office in my life.

I thought that automobiles were going to have mufflers and go fast and airplanes were going to fly fast.

I haven't sold to the movies. In other words, I haven't gotten any enormous checks yet.

It seems to limit you; when you're working in an office, you're a creature in a small cell under somebody's supervision and surveillance.

But I've sure worked at jobs where I have been under inspection.

I never made lots of money at it, but I sold enough.

This flattery has been rather slow in coming. I think all of sudden late in life now I'm getting some credit for what I've done. Which is gratifying, but it's kind of a little late.

I worked for half a cent a word. I'm not a fast writer to begin with, so for the first few years I had do other things.

I was an omnivore at reading, so that everything I ever read contributed.

But Roy Rockwood, it was science fiction for the sake of science fiction.

I don't read other science fiction. I don't read any at all.

In fact, almost every job you get somebody watching you.

As I mentioned, I was a carpenter for a time.

The story was such that I couldn't make a graceful ending and then make a graceful new beginning. I could have, but I didn't want to. So, it isn't the most graceful way of writing a story. This new story is, I think, is pretty good stuff. I'm pleased with it anyway.

Then there was Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote for Weird Tales and who had a wild imagination. He wasn't a very talented writer, but his imagination was wonderful.

So I'll write it, and then I'll find out that I actually wrote something that is utterly useless. You can't use it in the story and it doesn't fit. So I just throw it away. I've done that countless times.

But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me.

I got done writing Ports of Call and suddenly realized I have far too much material for the book.

Well, I think everything I've ever read contributes to the background from which I write.

Happiness is fugitive dissatisfaction and boredom are real.

Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience.

When you do a play, you have all this time to rehearse and grow into the character. In television, even though you're waiting and waiting and waiting, once you're actually on set engaging in the scene with another actor, time is of the essence.

Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairytale artist.

I don't collect any memorabilia. I wish I'd have kept everything I had. But who knew you had to keep it. Just gave it away. And we lost so much and we didn't look after a lot of it.

Newborn screening is a public health intervention that involves a simple blood test used to identify many life-threatening genetic illnesses before any symptoms begin.

Memories were the markers of the journey through life. It was necessary to know where you had come from. Only then could you know where you were going.

With failure, you just try again.

A Latino actor can't play this and a Latino actor can't play that because they're Latino.

If all the year were playing holidays to sport would be as tedious as to work.

Thinking - in particular abstract thinking, which most of us are introduced to through the study of mathematics and literature - helps us learn that we can become problem solvers.

I don't like to see a scary image because it sticks in my mind. Which is maybe why I get hired to do the scary movies because I'm truly scared and upset.

I do have an ego, but I acknowledge the help I get.

The whole business of reading English Literature in two years, to know it in any reputable sense of the word - let alone your learning to write English - is, in short, impossible.

In 2003, I almost died of an intestinal blockage when I was on a mountain in Chile, filming a segment for 'Scientific American Frontiers.'

More and more, I find myself turning away from everything relating to contemporary society. I don't know how healthy it is, but I am creating a very private bubble that I live in.

Insanity is just what we call stupidity when it doesnt make sense.

There is so much we can do to save lives on our roads.