George W. Romney

Prayer is not a substitute for work. First we have to do all we can ourselves to understand a situation. Then when we ask for help, sometimes it is very evident, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes we may well be helped by not getting a decision.

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.