She was sceptical about the painting when it was finished. 'It's nice. But it's not quite like the real thing.' 'But what would be the point of it be… - Brian Aldiss

That is why you are so troubled. You see through the deception, yet you refuse to see through the deception.

Credeti că trăim în centrul universului. Eu vă spun că trăim în centrul curtii unei ferme. Poziția noastră este atat de obscură, încat nu vă puteți da seama cât este de obscură.

That first novel of mine, Non-Stop, is directly attributable to Heinlein. His "Common Sense" seemed to me such a good story, but bereft of any human feelings. I thought long about that story, and then I thought how wonderful it would be to write about a spaceship in which people have been imprisoned for generations and to put in something of the human feeling. So that novel is directly attributable to Heinlein. I thought, in my youthful arrogance, that I could do it better — I didn't! I thought I could do it differently, and I think I did do it differently. And I suppose that on the whole, I've concentrated on doing things differently ever since.