"Because he was a reader, a writer, and a thinker, van Vogt regarded himself as an intellectual. But if he was an intellectual, it was not of the usual sort. He wasn't silver-tongued or swift-witted. He had very little ability to remember a precise fact or an exact niggle, and no talent at all for linear thought and logical analysis. He was not a conventional man of reason. Rather, van Vogt's usual method was to fix on some question or subject in a highly single-minded way — to surround it and dwell upon it and absorb it. He might get nowhere with a problem for the longest time, but then at last the penny would drop and some insight would pop into his mind. When van Vogt had enough insights accumulated on a topic, they would assemble themselves into what he would come to think of as a system — a methodology or mode of approach that had its own consistency, if only in the manner in which it was applied by him. In later days, van Vogt would even take pride in describing himself as "Mr. System.""
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Alexei Panshin, in "Man Beyond Man : The Early Stories of A.E. van Vogt" by Alexei Panshin in The Abyss of Wonder
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A._E._van_Vogt
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A. E. van Vogt
Alfred Elton van Vogt (/vænvoʊt/; 26 April 1912 – 26 January 2000) was a Canadian-born science fiction author regarded as one of the most popular and influential science fiction writers of the mid-twentieth century.
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