Torture is such a slippery slope; as soon as you allow a society or any legal system to do that, almost instantly you get a situation where people are being tortured for very trivial reasons.

In so much of politics you're not allowed to disagree with what's been agreed.

My point has always been that, ever since the Industrial Revolution, science fiction has been the most important genre there is.

I'm not a great believer in awards-of course the fact that I've never won one has nothing to do with it at all!

As a writer, you get to play, you get alter time, you get to come up with the smart lines and the clever comebacks you wish you'd thought of.

As long as a film stays unmade, the book is entirely yours, it belongs to the writer. As soon as you make it into a film, suddenly more people see it than have ever read the book.