I'm trying to make all the characters change and grow, or regress.

I loved to read and to write, but then something happened. As I made my way through school, I kept getting handed books to read that didn't excite me and didn't even remotely connect to the realities of my life.

I've always been a fighter. If you tell me I can't, I'll die trying to prove you wrong.

I do that mostly because I believe that the fantasy business is in terrible trouble right now, for several reasons, not the least of which being the almost Democrat vs. Republican mentality of readers on the Internet.

I didn't and don't go to Internet for any business purposes. The book sales for me by this point are way beyond any influence I might have, positively, or others might have, negatively.

Here's the thing, for me at least: this is a huge genre now. It wasn't always so. Not so many years ago, it wasn't so. There is a tremendous diversity in fantasy today.

It got so bad that by the time I was graduated, the only reading I did was in order to get the grade and the only writing I did was in order to get the grade.

I'm a working-class kid from a blue-collar New England family.

I loved the world of imagination.

I never intended to be a professional writer; as the story developed, the one thing I had in my hopes was that this would be something tangible to separate me from the nameless, numbered masses.

I thought I would set the world on fire when I got out of college. I had done quite well in a field that was growing. Unfortunately, we got hit with a recession in 1981.

Also, there are authors and publicists using the Internet to manipulate opinion, both positively for a work and negatively against the competition. I don't do this and can't stomach it, honestly.

I don't often know exactly what's coming next, and that makes it more fun. And you know, for me, this entire genre is all about that; it's all about having fun and getting away from the mundane world for just a little while.

Writing is an incredibly lonely job.

I'm trying to make all the characters change and grow, or regress.

So, while I gave up the notions of publishing at that time, I never stopped editing and refining that book. A few years later, in 1987, I thought I had it ready to go out again.

In the past, TSR and now Wizards of the Coast have asked me to do game stats for my characters, and I'm never comfortable doing that. It's all relative after all.

Writing a book for me, I expect, is very similar to the experience of reading the book for my readers.

Definitely they write themselves. It's an amazing experience. It's like the characters have come alive and are sitting on my shoulder talking to me, telling me their tales.

I don't know how many bestsellers I've got, or half the awards I've won, and I don't really care. I'm just having fun, doing something I love and getting paid for it. How cool is that?

I won't hold any illusions of changing the world or any such nonsense. But maybe, just maybe, I'm helping someone else change his or her life a little bit for the better, even if it just means giving someone a magical place in which to hide.

On a more practical level, anyone out there who wants to be a writer should clearly recognize that this is a brutal business, where even incredibly talented people sometimes never make a living. If you want to chase such a dream, please have a Plan B in place.

Things don't really impress me. Memories impress me. It's not the toys, it's the people.

This is my spiritual journey through life, my way of making sense of the world. I don't need permission from anyone or accolades from anyone; it is completely internal.

This little hobbit saves the world. The wizard kills the dragon and saves the town. So many people connect to that character; it doesn't matter if it's an elf or a hobbit or a dwarf. It doesn't matter. They're human in their heart and soul.

Whenever you're writing a book or creating a movie or a game, your first task is to get the reader/audience/player to suspend disbelief, to buy into the logic and boundaries of your world, even though those boundaries might include things like dragons and magic. To do that, you need long threads - of history and culture.

Writers always have confidence issues - it comes with the territory. We never know where we fit in, or what the actual value of our work might be. So we hit lulls, or slogs. Throw in the idea that many creative people are somewhat manic-depressive, and it can get pretty dark at times.

We need to be reminded sometimes that a sunrise last but a few minutes. But its beauty can burn in our hearts eternally.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change.

Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

I wouldn't change Buffy for anything and I wouldn't change the course in which she has evolved but it is nice to be able to do something that is a little different.

For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.

You don't have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life's about change.

I knew that my staying up would not change the election result if I were defeated, while if elected I had a hard day ahead of me. So I thought a night's rest was best in any event.

It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end.

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.

In their search for quality, people seem to be looking for permanency in a time of change.

The game has kept faith with the public, maintaining its old admission price for nearly thirty years while other forms of entertainment have doubled and tripled in price. And it will probably never change.

One day I actually took the list into the bathroom and I put it up against my face and looked in the mirror and I realized I had one of two choices, change the list or change myself.

But the real focus should be on people who are buying today because the base is so big it will take a long time for any change materialize on an overall basis.

Markets change, tastes change, so the companies and the individuals who choose to compete in those markets must change.

The psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli.