More than fantasy or even science fiction Ray Bradbury wrote horror and like so many great horror writers he was himself utterly without fear of anything. He wasn't afraid of looking uncool - he wasn't scared to openly love innocence or to be optimistic or to write sentimentally when he felt that way.

Therefore when I considered this carefully the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.

I never feel so utterly fraudulent as when I review a movie whose charms impress all in the world and I simply do not get it. The other variant is that I love something the world disdains. This has had severe career consequences: I am still famous - or notorious - in certain quarters where I am recalled as the man who liked 'Hudson Hawk.'

Short of baseball and my family it was gaming. And gaming is a $20-million to $200-million multi-year effort. It's an insane stupid and utterly irresponsible act. But I did it.

The cool thing about writing is that there is really never a typical day. Sometimes I get a rhythm going and head off to work every morning and come home at night. Sometimes I'll write for two days straight and then be utterly blank for the next two.

A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend one human soul whom we can trust utterly who knows the best and worst of us and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

History repeats itself but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced. It is as utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird.

Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.

The most terrifying thing I can think of is being alone - and I mean utterly alone like no one else in the world alone - at night. That's the nucleus of the first story in my collection and it's also where the title came from for the book.

And then when all around grows dark when we feel utterly alone when all men right and left pass us by and know us not a forgotten feeling rises in the breast.