“I always started a job with the feeling that I'd soon quit or be fired, and this gave ma a relaxex manner that was mistaken for intelligence or some secret power.”

“I soon got a job as a fire-watcher at the Royal Naval Dockyard, the main employer in Plymouth. If anybody asked how many people worked there, the answer was always the same: about ten per cent.”

“I'd learned that some things are best kept secret.”

“Up until now I'd always thought RSI meant 'I hate my damn job.”

“Mistaken ideas always end in bloodshed, but in every case it is someone else’s blood. That is why some of our thinkers feel free to say just about anything.”

“You think that Man can start again, do you, Shea? Well you might be quite surprised to learn that some things never change, and that the dangers of power are always present, even to a race that almost obliterated itself.”

“So then I though I'd make some plans, but Fire thought she'd really rather be Water instead…”

“[A]lways get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start."

(Interview,, Issue 64, Winter 1975)”

“We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.”

“Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.”