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I've only written one science-fiction book: 'Fahrenheit 451.' That book is a book based on real facts and my hatred of people who destroy books.

Science fiction was one of those places, particularly during the McCarthy era, where you could write whatever you wanted because it was beneath contempt. They didn't bother censoring it.

One of the more depressing things about reading your fiction 25 years later, or 10 years later, is you realize the only things going on are things you made go on. Strange and interesting and new and wonderful things don't happen. It's the book you wrote; that's all.

I was a very keen reader of science fiction, and during the time I was going to libraries, it was good, written by people who knew their science.

I didn't want to write a book. They made me do it.

Writing fiction was a way to take the ideas that troubled me or confused me and put them under pressure.

I put my thoughts in a book, which must mean I don't want anyone to read them.

The books of C.S. Lewis had a very profound, indirect effect on me.

Until I read Anne Frank's diary, I had found books a literal escape from what could be the harsh reality around me. After I read the diary, I had a fresh way of viewing the both literature and the world. From then on, I found I was impatient with books that were not honest or that were trivial and frivolous.

The stories that engaged me as a kid were all science fiction. Later, it turned out that I didn't have the language to talk about what was bothering me in a way that was straightforward.