Nice Things Are Nicer Than Nasty Ones.

I've Been Trying To Write For As Long As I Can Remember. But Those First Fifteen Years Didn't Produce Much Of Great Interest. I Mean, It Embarrasses Me Very Much To Look Back On My Early Poems--very Few Lines Of Any Merit At All And Lots Of Affectation. But There Were Quite A Lot Of Them. That's A Point In One's Favor.

To Refer Even In Passing To Unpublished Or Struggling Authors And Their Problems Is To Put Oneself At Some Risk, So I Will Say Here And Now That Any Unsolicited Manuscripts Or Typescripts Sent To Me Will Be Destroyed Unread. You Must Make Your Way Yourself. Why You Should Be So Set On The Nearly Always Disappointing Profession Is A Puzzling Question.

How Wrong People Always Were When They Said: 'it's Better To Know The Worst Than Go On Not Knowing Either Way.' No; They Had It Exactly The Wrong Way Round. Tell Me The Truth, Doctor, I'd Sooner Know. But Only If The Truth Is What I Want To Hear.

[science Fiction Is] That Class Of Prose Narrative Treating Of A Situation That Could Not Arise In The World We Know, But Which Is Hypothesised On The Basis Of Some Innovation In Science Or Technology, Or Pseudo-science Or Pseudo-technology, Whether Human Or Extra-terrestrial In Origin. It Is Distinguished From Pure Fantasy By Its Need To Achieve Verisimilitude And Win The 'willing Suspension Of Disbelief' Through Scientific Plausibility.

Outside Every Fat Man There Is An Even Fatter Man Trying To Close In.