When I came to write science-fiction novels, I came lugging this great heavy sack of stuff, my carrier bag full of wimps and klutzes, and tiny grains of things smaller than a mustard seed, […] full of beginnings without ends, of initiations, and far more tricks than conflicts, far fewer triumphs than snares and delusions; full of space ships that get stuck, missions that fail, and people who don’t understand.

What one must do to bring her to life was to think poetically and prosaically at one and the same moment, thus keeping in touch with facts – that she is Mrs. Martin, aged thirty-six, dressed in blue, wearing a black hat and brown shoes; but not losing sight of fiction either – that she is a vessel in which all sorts of spirits and forces are coursing and flashing perpetually.

The imagination is an instrument of empathy.

Jede Lebensgeschichte verdient es, dass es schmerzt und weh tut.

Vielleicht ist das auch eine Form, um einer Person zu gedenken.