No novel is a clone of any preceding one, though with a background cast of characters and things that has grown to thousands, there are many familiar aspects.

That most dangerous of opponents: the one who took pains to comprehend the position of his adversary.

I wish my readers took less of my time - about a third of my working time goes to them - but I love and need them all.

When I started writing this, I found that I simply couldn't take fantasy seriously, so it became humorous, and continued from there.

I never do a full outline, and if I did, I would not feel bound to it, because the view from inside a scene can be different from the view outside it. But neither do I just start writing and see what happens; I am far more disciplined than that.

I turned my home state of Florida into the Land of Xanth.

At the time I wrote Xone I had never been on the Internet.

Normally I work out a general summary of what I mean to do, then start writing, and the details can be different from my anticipation. So there is considerable flow, but always within channels.

I did not know at first that it would be a series; I discovered after the first novel that I had more to say about it, so I did another. And another, and then the readers demanded yet more.

One reason I don't suffer Writer's Block is that I don't wait on the muse, I summon it at need.

If every editor turns you down, maybe you should take a second look at your text, however, just in case.

Princess Rose should indeed be a TV movie, assuming something doesn't go wrong. I don't know how good a movie it will be, because the way movie folk think is different from the way writers think, and I distrust what isn't done my way. This is what I call a healthy paranoia.

No novel is a clone of any preceding one, though with a background cast of characters and things that has grown to thousands, there are many familiar aspects.

SF is the literature of the theoretically possible, and F is the literature of the impossible.

Have a working spouse, because you won't earn a living from writing - not at first, if ever. My wife worked for years to support us.

I maintain an ongoing survey of Internet Publishing and self publishing, so that it is now possible for any writer with a book to get it published at nominal cost or free, and to have it on sale at booksellers like Amazon.com.

Keep writing, because not only does practice improve skill, it gives you more chances to score on the market. I did that for eight years before making my first sale.

I do one Xanth novel a year, because at the moment that is all that publishers will accept; they don't want any other type of fiction from me, so Xanth pays my way.

All things make sense; you just have to fathom how they make sense.

What I like least is dealing with publishers who simply don't want collaborations regardless of their merit.

In fact, I believe that we need better sex education in our own culture, here in America, so that young folk learn about things like venereal disease before they encounter it.

But I don't read or listen for pleasure. I have too much else to do.

I have always admired the work of Phil Farmer and was glad for the chance to work with him. Readers today may be too young to remember his classics like The Lovers.

It would be easier to write a novel without reader input, but I feel the fiction is richer for it.

At present I answer about 100 letters a month, and read 300 emails.

I hope to read a Harry Potter novel soon, to see what it's all about. I admit to being annoyed that many good light fantasy writers have had trouble getting published, in England and elsewhere, when it is obvious the readers were waiting for us all along.

When one person makes an accusation, check to be sure he himself is not the guilty one. Sometimes it is those whose case is weak who make the most clamour.

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series also shows the potential of lighter fantastic fiction. I read the first, and listened to a tape of a later one, and it's fun.

As for collaboration - I have done a lot, 26 books, and found publishers increasingly resistive to them. It's not that the books are bad; editors won't even read them.

When one person makes an accusation check to be sure he himself is not the guilty one. Sometimes it is those whose case is weak who make the most clamour.

Birth is about radical creative life affirming change. It is about adaptation on a nearly unbelievable scale.

I was working like a dog as a housekeeper, barista, nanny, cook, so I could save enough money to really sit with my instruments. Whenever I had 20 minutes, I would practice a new chord or write a new verse.

You know, be an actor because you love to act. Don't be an actor because you think you're going to get famous, because that's luck.

All people have dignity. There's nobody who was born without a soul and a spirit.

I think I can bring a lot to the triangle offense. Derek Fisher wasn't the tallest guard, but what he did is succeed and have a great career. I'm looking forward to learning from him. I've never played in the system, so I want to get there early.

Stand-up comedy is all you. It's your show, it's your game. You control every aspect of it - of that experience and that expression. There's really nothing quite as satisfying.

Hope is a good breakfast but it is a bad supper.

Life is like a carnival. The cotton candy is all of the sweet things in your life. The carnies are the unwanted junk. The rides represent all of the diversity and choices. And then there is the dunk tank a place where you can get all of your angry out just like your friends when you vent to them.

Spending hours stressed out in front of the TV isn't the same as volunteering or donating. Feeling a high level of personal distress makes people feel agitated and emotionally drained, to the point that they lack the energy or detachment to help - or the energy to manage themselves.

What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism.

To me, doing a gay pride show is one of the most fun things. My first show that paid more than $10,000 was in a gay club on New Year's Eve in San Francisco.

I support health care for people. I want people well taken care of. But I also want health care that we can afford as a country. I have people and friends closing down their businesses because of Obamacare.

I still love taking pictures with Polaroid film. For me, it offers the most beautiful way of capturing reality and transferring it onto a flat piece of paper.

The presidency is not an office job. If I only sit in the office in Dar es Salaam, I'm not running the country. I visit the country to inspect development programmes, to inspect activities, to see how things are going, how the government agenda is being implemented, what are the teething issues.

I like to take on the thing I don't like at the moment. I like to find something that looks wrong or feels off, something that I would never have done in the past, like brocade. And then all of a sudden, if we can make brocade work, then we've really done something, because I hate it. And that's just a reference. I don't actually hate brocade.

I'm speaking for all of us. I'm the spokesman for a generation.

It's more than a little ironic that the mantra that swept Bill Clinton into office is exactly what prevented Hillary from winning it. Somehow, the Manhattan billionaire became the voice of the disaffected blue-collar middle class in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

It appears that PepsiCo views structural change as a sign of weakness, an admission of failure, and an untenable break with past traditions.