Deadly nightshade is the only plant I have ever been able to get to grow for me. - James Nicoll

's antagonists are always evil moustache-twirlers. She could write a book about a golf open and the main rival to the hero would turn out to have clubs made from compressed kittens.

seems from all reports to have been a very pleasant fellow but he did have one huge blind spot, which is that he was as sexist as a giant ball of sexists wrapped in a dense layer of yet more sexists.

Niven made a name for himself as a author, which is to say, someone whose SF provides enough technical detail that the reader can be certain that various mechanisms and events couldn't work the way the author has them working.