Writing I'm convinced should be a subversive activity - frowned on by the authorities - and not one cooed over and praised beyond common sense by some teacher.

Do I think it's OK to fight authority as long as you're only talking about the high school teacher? No.

You can't tell a woman who is called by God to teach that she cannot teach the Word of God... So I think the distinction is that there's a difference between the authority of a pastor and a Bible teacher.

A teacher should have maximal authority and minimal power.

It's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success.

Well I think any author or musician is anxious to have legitimate sales of their products partly so they're rewarded for their success partly so they can go on and do new things.

Our moral authority is as important if not more important than our troop strength or our high-tech weapons. We are rapidly losing that moral authority not only in the Arab world but all over the world.

In emerging democracies like Russia in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies.

The response of anybody interested in liberty is that we all have a say and the ability to have an argument is exactly what liberty is even though it may never be resolved. In any authoritarian society the possessor of power dictates and if you try and step outside he will come after you.

The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces nor slander us behind our backs nor intrude upon our privacy nor quit their shelves until we take them down.

There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives.

Now Venus is an extremely hostile environment and as such presents a lot of challenges for a science fiction author who wants to create life there. However as I began to research it more thoroughly I found myself intrigued by the possibilities the world offers.

That science has long been neglected and declining in England is not an opinion originating with me but is shared by many and has been expressed by higher authority than mine.

Since Hiroshima and the Holocaust science no longer holds its pristine place as the highest moral authority. Instead that role is taken by human rights. It follows that any assault on Jewish life - on Jews or Judaism or the Jewish state - must be cast in the language of human rights.

In the post-enlightenment Europe of the 19th century the highest authority was no longer the Church. Instead it was science. Thus was born racial anti-Semitism based on two disciplines regarded as science in their day - the 'scientific study of race' and the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer and Ernst Haeckel.

In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

It vexes me when they would constrain science by the authority of the Scriptures and yet do not consider themselves bound to answer reason and experiment.

In a sad twist of fate the bill to reauthorize the Patriot Act was debated on the floor of the House of Representatives the same day that terrorists struck again.

Out of respect to writers you have to read the book in the way in which the author visualised it going out into the world.

We show deference to the civil authorities when they respect the divine origin of their power and when they serve the people with objective reference to the law of God.

I believe that like most writers my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can't be like any other author's really.

I undertake that in the exercise of my functions of that office I will have regard to any guidance with respect to ethical standards issued by the secretary of state under Section 66 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999.

Where the people possess no authority their rights obtain no respect.

We are not directly involved in Syria. But we will be working with our partners in the European Union and at the United Nations to see if we can persuade the Syrian authorities to go as I say more in that direction of respect for democracy and human rights.