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

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.

Without feeling abashed by my ignorance, I confess that I am absolutely unable to say. In the absence of an appearance of learning, my answer has at least one merit, that of perfect sincerity.

Evidently the merit depends on the result of the work.

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

A book is worth a few francs; we Germans can afford to destroy those. We all may not appreciate artistic merit, but cash value is another matter.

The merit of a democratic regime rests on one's continual willingness to exchange views, and to compete on the basis of individual merit and capacities.

If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit Awards.

Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.

Australia as a nation, as a set of cities and some regional centres, that project died a death and we didn't get it up, but I still think there's merit in that.

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

I no longer have the terrible nightmares that I used to have. Mao had just died in 1976, and China began to open up. For the first time scholarships to go to the West to study were awarded on academic merit.

The market system requires that people be committed and willing to work hard. Inherent with that is what I call a merit system, which I think gives people the greatest opportunity.

Merit, however inconsiderable, should be sought for and rewarded. Methods are the master of masters.

I was induced to establish several orders of merit, from conviction that emulation, well directed, becomes a useful servant; and, that the latent genius of some youth is more easily brought into action this way, than by the more sordid gratification of self-interest.

Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.

The sacrifices made by veterans and their willingness to fight in defense of our nation merit our deep respect and praise - and to the best in benefits and medical care.

Pride in boasting of family antiquity, makes duration stand for merit.

But if our sex would but well consider and rationally ponder, they will perceive and find that it is neither words nor place that can advance them, but worth and merit.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.