I never know where I am going, though. That is part of what makes it so wonderful. And after all, who does?

Genre categories are irrelevant. I dislike them, but I do not have the casting vote.

If they had said my writing wasn't good enough, fair enough, that's an opinion. But to say it's too complex is to insult the intelligence of the so-called young.

The other writer who had a very important early influence on me when I was about 17 was C.S. Lewis.

I think of myself as a storyteller, and that is it.

I just love writing. It's magical, it's somewhere else to go, it's somewhere much more dreadful, somewhere much more exciting. Somewhere I feel I belong, possibly more than in the so-called real world.

Pirates have always fascinated me.

I never know where I am going, though. That is part of what makes it so wonderful. And after all, who does?

Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?

As a child, my mother told me lots of fairy stories, many her own invention. She, too, tended to reverse the norm.

It's very selfish when I write. I'm not aware, ever, of writing for another person; I'm not even really aware of writing for myself.

At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be, but what I was, of course, was a writer.

I also love Disney, and will defend doing so, because there's so much in those films and I don't care if it's stereotyped.

I like writing about women, weak and strong, pathetic and heroic. I like writing about men, ditto. And all the variants of men and women, beasts and demons.

When I am fascinated by something, I like to play with it.

I'm writing what comes into my head, or through me, or from somewhere else, and it is the most extraordinary, exciting thing. I love it, and I'm very greedy, and I really enjoy it!

I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.

I love writers all across the board, but one who influenced me very directly at the beginning was Mary Renault.

People are always the start for me... animals, when I can get into their heads, gods, supernatural beings, immortals, the dead... these are all people to me.

I like films, or some films, and would be intrigued to see my work on screen.

I've been criticised for writing in too complex a manner for younger people.

No one is ever ordinary.

It gets cold in the desert at night particularly up in the mountains the stars hammer on the rock and strike frost.

The guilty are always the most prone to establish complementary guilt and the most unforgiving thereafter.

No one asks a robot what he wants.

In the greater part of humankind there resides an instinct for survival. It is this which can clutch at straws and effect a rescue from them. It is this which can, now and then, outwit fate.

The worst vulgarity is to avoid vulgarity solely on the grounds that it is vulgar.

That is definitely something that I feel more comfortable with now. When I did 'Lord of the Rings,' it was something I wasn't quite prepared for, I didn't know how to deal with that sort of attention, and I kind of shied away from that, but I'm better at dealing with that now - a lot better.

On your journey to achievement, you should never be without good positive materials and people who will encourage you, excite you and give you a reason to move forward.

It is only through dialogue deep listening and passionate disagreement that we find our way to something larger than a singular and isolated point of view.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking.

When I'm in the classical world, I really treat it as exactly classical and I don't try and spruce it up or jazz it up or make it easier for the masses.

Stop whining: start enjoying. And when you look back at the past, make sure you're smiling.

If you are looking for a sign not to kill yourself, this is it.

Martha Stewart has two houses in East Hampton. She has an old fashioned Victorian house and a very new modern house.

Recognition of this kinship with the rest of the universe is necessary for understanding him, but his essential nature is defined by qualities found nowhere else, not by those he has in common with apes, fishes, trees, fire, or anything other than himself.

Judaism boasts of no exclusive revelation of eternal truths that are indispensable to salvation, of no revealed religion in the sense in which that term is usually understood.

After I left the Nets, I found out what it takes to not just make the Finals, but to win a championship. I think I have a sense now of how you build a championship structure and how you maintain that structure.

Life gives you enough hard knocks so it's unlikely you'll stay that sure of yourself.

You got to be careful mentioning people as great as Clint Eastwood. You can't put me in the same sentence as that man.

It's funny; Luther and I have written many songs together, but we've never written songs in the same room.

'A collected poems' is either a gravestone or a testimonial to survival.

There's no way to remove the observer - us - from our perceptions of the world.

I just like the ball in my hands whether I'm running it or catching it.

Being able and willing to complain is what makes us rational and moral animals, capable of seeing and articulating the difference between how things are and how they should be.

Women are tenacious, and all of them should be tenacious of respect; without esteem they cannot exist; esteem is the first demand that they make of love.

The audience includes subscribers, so you have to be careful.

It's fun to be able to have a fun palate, and the way I say that, you think about it and it sounds funny, but it's true.