I have some good stories yet to tell.

Research is of considerable importance in certain fields, such as science and history.

I suspect that writer's block afflicts mainly people who have some stable and ample source of income outside of writing. So far it hasn't been a problem.

There's a big overlap with the people you meet at the fantasy and science fiction cons.

The comments I most appreciate come from ordinary readers who've happened on one of my books at some time of stress in their lives, and who actually credit the book with helping them through a bad time. It's happened a few times in forty years.

The same tools that make any writer good, plus a cheerful willingness to suspend belief.

At this stage, my chief professional goal is simply to keep on writing and making a living at it.

I doubt I'll ever do another book collaboration; I've been spoiled. Roger and I both happened to move to New Mexico at about the same time, when we each had a family of young kids to raise. Socializing seemed to lead naturally to working together.

The advice would be the same for any kind of fiction. Keep writing, and keep sending things out, not to friends and relatives, but to people who have the power to buy. A lot of additional, useful tips could be added, but this is fundamental.

Mysteries I read for fun, so I will probably never write one, for fear of spoiling the fun.

Probably all the books I've ever written have been efforts to define the boundaries of humanity.

And what we know, or think we know, about the universe of space and time is changing very quickly.

I wouldn't like to just do one story or one type of stories all the time.

My gut feeling is that paper and ink are going to be with us for a long time yet, and in substantial quantities, though certainly books are now going to be available in other forms.

I had immediate success in the sense that I sold something right off the bat. I thought it was going to be a piece of cake and it really wasn't. I have drawers full of - or I did have - drawers full of rejection slips.

Actually ideas are everywhere. It's the paperwork, that is, sitting down and thinking them into a coherent story, trying to find just the right words, that can and usually does get to be labor.

I guess if one set of my books was selling like Stephen King's, and the other wasn't selling at all, editors would want me to do the ones that sold like Stephen King's. But they seem to be willing to let me pick what I want to do next.

I started writing seriously about 1960, at the fairly advanced age of 30.

The Swords were still interesting but by then a cast of characters had started to appear and go on from book to book, and other things about the world began to feel constricting. And there were other things I wanted to do, so I closed the series up and stopped it.

I don't know why a computer game can't be an art form just as a puppet show or an opera is. I'm still interested in computer games as something I would like to work on someday.

I have some good stories yet to tell.

There are interactions with characters within the game which I think are pretty neatly done considering the limitations that you have to work with. I mean, a computer can't really generate a character that talks back and forth with you successfully.

The Berserkers have been with me for about forty years, and we're not done yet.

I finally decided one day, reading science fiction magazines of the time, I could do at least as well as some of these people are doing. So I finally made a serious effort.

I wrote speculative fiction because I loved to read it, and thought I could do better than some of the people who were getting published.

More immediately, I'm currently working on another Dracula in which there will be connections with ancient Egypt. That's about as far as I want to go in commenting on current work.

If people ask me for the ingredients of success, I say one is talent, two is stubbornness or determination, and third is sheer luck. You have to have two out of the three. Any two will probably do.

Only towards the end of this process are any of the chapters in fully readable condition, a state of affairs that used to alarm my wife. But Joan's got used to it.

Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see farther.

I spent a good part of the nineties roaming the Earth writing about conflict. It was very grueling. I was beginning to find this way of life was, wow, addictive and deeply meaningful.

Preaching is the most original thing I've ever done. There's nothing familiar about it. You have to be brave.

Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.

Kuwait City is not gorgeous, actually, but it's got a kind of Epcot Center thing going for it. It's not pretty. But it's striking, I'll give it that. It's not as over-the-top as Abu Dhabi or Dubai. But nearly.

It's weird, because usually if you're British and you go to America you play baddies; but I play naughty people here and goodies in America.

Study and work and work and study will keep in active exercise both the physical and mental. These two, rightly conducted, will not war against each other.

The Bio-diversity Convention has not yielded any tangible benefits to the world's poor.

We smoked a lot of cloves.

I get demoralized by organizations that start off with a mission and pull back when they find it's risky.

My decision to look seriously at elected office is grounded in a deep commitment to public service and my experience - both my own and that of my family - in finding just, practical, and bipartisan solutions to difficult challenges.

I'm from L.A. South Central area.

Everyone except the far right wing of the Republican Party realizes that oil, gas and coal burning are the main activities that have sent the climate into bigger floods, droughts, hurricanes, and El Ninos.

President Obama's biggest advocates believe that Americans are ready to embrace his vision for the United States: a less muscular America on the world stage, an America with a more controlling executive branch and less conflict in the legislative branch, an America in which the government takes care of us, be we Pajama Boys or Julias.

Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

All you need is love

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.

In order to land a punch, you need to bring your fingers together into a fist. We need to join all of our forces together. That is the only way that we can win.

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.

When life gives you nail polishes, make nail art.

I have one computer that my wife gave me. All I know how to do, and I do it every day, is play Spider Solitaire. And I don't have a cell phone.