In one book, CACHALOT, just for my own amusement, every character is based directly on someone I have known.

Writing allows me the time to travel and see the world, which is what I always wanted to do. I'd really like to have been Sir Richard Francis Burton, but it's the wrong century.

In one book, CACHALOT, just for my own amusement, every character is based directly on someone I have known.

I enjoy listening to classical music and heavy metal. I play basketball and try to go diving at least once a year. I don't really have hobbies in the traditional sense... I engage in too many activities already through the actions of my characters.

Besides the mistakes that are pointed out, I love the way readers become involved with the characters. When readers start asking about character motivations instead of concentrating on the special effects, it means you're connecting with them on a personal level.

I've been writing full-time since 1978.

The overwhelming triumph of the international multimedia conglomerate has resulted in less diversity within the field and has made it much harder for newer writers not only to break in, but to make any kind of a living while doing so.

I hear entire symphonies, oratorios, in my head, but I can't write a note.

Getting inside the mind of a terrorist wasn't difficult at all. Even as children, human beings fabricate elaborate revenge fantasies. We're not a particular species. Check out popular video games.

I see the Jedi mission as giving up a normal life in exchange for protecting the innocent. It's a life of sacrifice. There are rewards, but also a certain degree of sterility.

How much research I have to do depends on the nature of the story. For fantasy, none at all.

Keep writing. Try to do a little bit every day, even if the result looks like crap. Getting from page four to page five is more important than spending three weeks getting page four perfect.

I try to challenge myself as much as possible, as often as possible.

I usually do one con a year as a GoH and try to make the World Fantasy Convention for business purposes. Last year I went to a worldcon for the first time in two decades. I may go again this year.

There's certainly more new SF available than when I started writing. That means there's also more bad SF available. Whether there is also more good is a matter for future historians of the field.

Don't try to write to the trend of the moment.

Advances have fallen, generally, for everything except the biggest potential bestsellers. Given all the changes, both economic and technological, SF hasn't done too badly.

I write early in the morning, usually after reading portions of at least half a dozen newspapers on the web.

Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.

Living gives you a better understanding of life. I would hope that my characters have become deeper and more rounded personalities. Wider travels have given me considerably greater insight into how cultural differences affect not only people, but politics and art.

Dawn was written well before 9/11. People speak a lot today about the banality of evil, but not all evil is banal. Some of it is carefully structured and well-thought-out. That's where the real danger lies.

Growing up, I never gave a thought to being a writer. All I ever wanted to be was a traveler and explorer. Science-fiction allowed me to go places that were otherwise inaccessible, which is why I started reading it. I was going to be a lawyer, but I got saved.

I have a bad tendency to get rapidly bored with my own material, so rewriting is hard for me. I mean, I already know the story and would rather read something new.

Freedom is just Chaos with better lighting.

Getting inside the mind of a terrorist wasnt difficult at all. Even as children human beings fabricate elaborate revenge fantasies. Were not a particular species. Check out popular video games.

Spontaneity is one of the joys of existence, especially if you prepare for it in advance.

An apex is always surrounded only by emptiness.

Romance, like the rabbit at the dog track, is the elusive, fake, and never attained reward which, for the benefit and amusement of our masters, keeps us running and thinking in safe circles.

A marriage is no amusement but a solemn act, and generally a sad one.

A slight touch of friendly malice and amusement towards those we love keeps our affections for them from turning flat.

In one book, CACHALOT, just for my own amusement, every character is based directly on someone I have known.

This is real human drama, we're not creating some amusement park ride for the summer. Even though the movie is really exciting to watch, it's got a real pathos behind it.

Films have degenerated to their original operation as carnival amusement - they offer not drama but thrills.

Looking at yourself through the media is like looking at one of those rippled mirrors in an amusement park.

Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement.

I don't enjoy getting knocked about on a football field for other people's amusement. I enjoy it if I'm being paid a lot for it.

I've included these little jokes and mysteries in my writing for the amusement of readers.

We grew out of the superhero comics, but we still liked comics, so we started putting our own experiences in the stories we were doing for our own amusement.

I would rather write for the instruction, or even the amusement of the poor than for the amusement of the rich.

One of the men attached to the prison was the occasion of great amusement on the part of the prisoners, as well as the spectators, by taking a large lump of ice to show these strangers from the tropics.

I look just like the girls next door... if you happen to live next door to an amusement park.

You can't live on amusement. It is the froth on water - an inch deep and then the mud.

To me, watching a movie is like going to an amusement park. My worst fear is making a film that people don't think is a good ride.

I was staying with my sister and messing around with the guitar every day for my own amusement. Then she took me around and introduced me to Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, and the first time I saw that onstage, it inspired me to play. I thought that was the world.

My idea of an amusement park story is getting adventurers to go tour environmental disaster areas. After all, if the entire Great Barrier Reef gets killed, which seems like an extremely lively possibility, what are you going to do with all that rotting limestone?

I'm too short to host a late-night talk show. It's like the bar at an amusement-park ride. You have to be six foot two or over.

I'm not here for your amusement. You're here for mine.

Art is creative for the sake of realization, not for amusement... for transfiguration, not for the sake of play.

Death seems to provide the minds of the Anglo-Saxon race with a greater fund of amusement than any other single subject.