We're Forever Teetering On The Brink Of

It Took Me Thirty-six Years; And, In Some Fifty Stories, Ranging In Length From Short-shorts To Novels, I Think I Must Have Touched, In One Way Or Another, On Every Aspect Of Computers And Computerization. And (mark This!) I Did It Without Ever Knowing Anything At All About Computers In Any Real Sense. To This Day, I Don't. I Am Totally Inept With Machinery... On My Typewriter I Turn Out Books At The Contemptible Rate Of One A Month

When I Die I Won't Go To Heaven Or Hell; There Will Just Be Nothingness.

It Has Been My Philosophy Of Life That Difficulties Vanish When Faced Boldly.

Surely, If We Take On Thinking Partners - Or, At The Least, Thinking Servants - In The Form Of Machines, We Will Be More Comfortable With Them, And Will Relate To Them More Easily, If They Are Shaped Like Humans. It Will Be Easier To Be Friends With Human-shaped Robots Than With Specialized Machines Of Unrecognizable Shape. And I Sometimes Think That, In The Desperate Straits Of Humanity Today, We Would Be Grateful To Have Nonhuman Friends, Even If They Are Only The Friends We Build Ourselves.

That's The Harm Of Close Encounters: That It Convinces Tens Of Millions That That's What Just Science Fiction Is.