Poul Anderson

“I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way did not become still more complicated.”

“The fact is, man has never stayed by a single ideal. The mass enthusiasm when you were young gave way to cool, rationalistic classicism. Today that’s being drowned in turn by a kind of neoromanticism. God knows where that will lead. I probably won’t approve. Regardless, new generations grow up. We’ve no right to freeze them into our own mold. The universe is too wide.”

“In Harvest of Stars, there is this notion, not original with me of course, that it will become possible to download at least the basic aspects of a human personality into a machine program.”

“We live with our archetypes, but can we live in them?”

“Heaven is not as narrowly literal-minded as hell.”

“What five books would I like to be remembered for? Well... Tau Zero, I like that one especially. It was somewhat of a tour de force, and I think it got across what I was trying for.”

“I wrote the first book, Harvest of Stars, and as I was writing it, I saw that certain implications had barely been touched on... It's perfectly obvious that two completely revolutionary things are going on, with cybernetics, and biological science.”

“Magic!' cried an old man. 'Tis sorcery, and we are undone!' 'Not so,' I told him, 'Sorcery cannot harm good Christians.' 'But I am a miserable sinner,' he wailed.”

“So much American science fiction is parochial -- not as true now as it was years ago, but the assumption is one culture in the future, more or less like ours, and with the same ideals, the same notions of how to do things, just bigger and flashier technology. Well, you know darn well it doesn't work that way...”