Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace. Robert J. Sawyer More Quotes by Robert J. Sawyer More Quotes From Robert J. Sawyer The heart and soul of good writing is research; you should write not what you know but what you can find out about. Robert J. Sawyer good you soul heart Everything is cross-platform now. That's part of the reality that we live in - a multifaceted, multimedia world - and I'm delighted to be a part of that. Robert J. Sawyer live everything reality world Our job is not to predict the future. Rather, it's to suggest all the possible futures - so that society can make informed decisions about where we want to go. Robert J. Sawyer job go future society We absolutely do some of the best science in the world in Canada, across a broad spectrum of disciplines: quantum computing in Waterloo, paleontology in Alberta, neuroscience at the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health in Vancouver, and many more. Robert J. Sawyer best health brain science People are looking for a simplicity in their fictional worlds where good and evil are clearly delineated, that you can't find in the real world, and that provides an enormous comfort - and that, I think, has an awful lot to do with the reason fantasy is so popular. Robert J. Sawyer good you simplicity people You can't be a 21st-century science fiction writer writing about Mars without doing tips of the hat to Edgar Rice Burroughs, to Ray Bradbury, to H.G. Wells, to the guys who first put it in the public imagination that Mars was an exciting place. Robert J. Sawyer hat you imagination science Psychopathy might lurk behind the mask of sanity. Robert J. Sawyer behind sanity mask might A short story is one idea; a novel is a whole soup of them. Robert J. Sawyer short story soup whole I think most people are indifferent in their evaluation of what is good or bad. Robert J. Sawyer bad good think people Writing is transmogrifying, not just for the reader but also for the author; an author becomes someone he or she isn't by living the lives of his or her characters. Robert J. Sawyer she someone living writing A short story is the shortest distance between two points; a novel is the scenic route. Robert J. Sawyer short story distance two An agnostic is someone who believes the nature of the Divine is unknowable... and in that sense, I'm willing to subscribe to being an agnostic. Robert J. Sawyer someone being nature divine Once we no longer have the intellectual upper hand, then we quite literally, by definition, cannot outwit our successors. So unless we are absolutely sure that the machines we are building right now are not going to eventually become our new robot overlords, prudence is called for. Robert J. Sawyer new now building intellectual Sci-fi is just as much about social science as technology. Robert J. Sawyer about just technology science When you're changing centuries, people get curious about the future. Robert J. Sawyer you curious future people The standard model of particle physics says that the universe consists of a very small number of particles, 12, and a very small number of forces, four. If we're correct about those 12 particles and those four forces and understand how they interact, properly, we have the recipe for baking up a universe. Robert J. Sawyer small understand baking universe I'm a member of the Writers Guild of America and the Writers Guild of Canada. Robert J. Sawyer guild member canada america The single best thing about Mars is the reduced gravity. It's 38 percent of Earth's gravity - about one third. Almost never have you seen that portrayed in film or television. Mars is just portrayed as a place that's got reddish sand but is otherwise pretty much identical to the Mojave Desert, and that's not the case. Robert J. Sawyer place best you desert The only shows that Americans watch in big numbers are shows about lawyers, doctors, or cops... People don't tune in to watch scientists unless they are forensic scientists. Robert J. Sawyer lawyers big numbers people I'm often characterized as an optimistic writer, and certainly my 'Neanderthal Parallax' and 'WWW' trilogies shade toward the utopian. I like to think that's not simple naivete, but rather a reasonable approach. Robert J. Sawyer like think shade simple