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All my writing life I have written to please first myself. Never, except wartime, have I written to order on a theme or subject definitely requested or suggested. But war, to me, is not life at all. It is an excrescence, a cancer on the body of civilization.

This is certain: I never have written a line except to please myself. I never have written with an eye to what is called the public or the market or the trend or the editor or the reviewer. Good or bad, popular or unpopular, lasting or ephemeral, the words I have put down on paper were the best words I could summon at the time to express the thing I wanted more than anything else to say.

Gathering himself together, he asked the dwarf, “Was all this in some way planned and predetermined?”

Gaskarth turned upon the young man a thoughtful gaze. “There are those who say that all is planned, to the placement of the last mote and mite. There are others who say that nothing is purposed, and that the galaxies themselves swing where they will. And then there are some, like me, who prefer to walk on, saying as little as possible.”

The writer given to rereading his or her past work is a writer in danger. Once you begin to mumble among your souvenirs you're through. Any writer who is properly a writer is working as long as he is alive or awake. It is virtually impossible for a writer to ride in the subway or on a bus, walk on the street or down a country road, telephone, read a book, talk, listen, breathe, without consciously or unconsciously sustaining the act of writing, in his mind at least. The analytical creative mind goes click-click-click while it is awake-and sometimes while it is asleep. It makes the writer's life interesting but somewhat feverish. Frequently one wishes it were possible to turn off the machinery that is eternally registering, collecting, discarding, filing. Writers are a tired lot, for the most part; and no wonder. It would be pleasant to know that these stories, some born long ago, others still young, have the strength and vitality to make new friends and even to renew old friendships. The writer herself is fond of them, or they would not be here. But the feeling is much that of a parent whose sons and daughters have married and gone off into the world. There they are, on their own at last, sink or swim, live or die. The author is finished with them, everything she can do for them has been done. And a new infant, not yet strong enough to walk alone, waits to be shown a way of life.

The basic principles alone often won't provide specific answers, but they'll provide the context needed to ask the right questions. And if we're used to working things out... we won't feel hopeless when the answer isn't obvious...

As far as we know, the physical laws we observe... on Earth apply everywhere... You can test them for yourself.

You don't have to be a qualified scientist to experiment with the world. Knowing some basic principles will set you on the right track... [I]t doesn't even have to be an organized process...

We are responsible for our civilization. We vote... choose what to buy and how to live... collectively [as] part of the human journey.

Science is not about 'them', it's about 'us'... we can all go on this adventure in our own way.

Critical thinking is essential... especially with advertisers and politicians all telling us... they know best.

No one can understand every... detail of our complex world, but the basic principles are fantastically valuable tools...

This is why I love physics. Everything you learn will come in useful somewhere else, and it's all one big adventure...