I don't believe a poet has a better hold on truth or morality than a fiction writer has. And I don't think a fiction writer has anything over a journalist. It's all about the good word, properly inserted.

What a writer can do, what a fiction writer or a poet or an essay writer can do is re-engage people with their own humanity.

I'm not a science fiction writer, I'm a physicist.

Fiction is nothing but non-fiction couched to conceal the identity of the writer.

I have a tendency to embellish: I think it's a weakness of fiction writers. Once you know how to make a story better, it's hard not to do it all the time.

George Orwell is half journalist, half fiction writer. I'm 100 percent fiction writer... I don't want to write messages. I want to write good stories. I think of myself as a political person, but I don't state my political messages to anybody.