That is how you get to be a writer, incidentally: you feel somehow marginal, somehow slightly off-balance all the time.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

If you appear in the 'Atlantic' or 'Harper's' or the 'New Yorker,' by God, you must be a writer, because everybody says so.

I hope to build a reputation as a science-fiction writer. That's the pitch. We'll see.

Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.