Charlie Chaplin

That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.

Every time I see documentaries or infomercials about little kids with cancer, I just freak out. It affects me on the highest emotional level... Anytime I think about it, it makes me sadder than anything I can think of.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.