Well, I think that as a country, we've drifted away from appreciating the importance of imagination.

Fantasy is the only canvas large enough for me to paint on.

I want you, as a reader, to experience what I experience, to let that other world, that imaginary world that I have created, tell you things about the real world.

Anyway, several rewrites later, Del Rey Books did publish my first novel, and it did become the first work of fiction on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list.

Hurt leads to bitterness, bitterness to anger, travel too far that road and the way is lost.

When I was a kid, we had to rely on our imaginations for entertainment.

Testing of self is a regular part of our own lives, so it seems natural to make it a part of the lives of my characters, as well, albeit on a much different level.

After all, you put a lot into creating a universe and everything that goes with it, and it seems a shame to use it only once.

I think I make better use of language and imagery than when I started out.

For a writer, its very attractive to stay in one world for a time.

I have learned to do more with less, so you don't see the big books anymore.

Writing fantasy lets me imagine a great deal more than, say, writing about alligators, and lets me write about places more distant than Florida, but I can tell you things about Florida and alligators, let you make the connection all on your own.

I haven't made up my mind about doing anymore Landover books.

Well, I think that as a country, we've drifted away from appreciating the importance of imagination.

Growing up, I didn't have a lot of toys, and personal entertainment depended on individual ingenuity and imagination - think up a story and go live it for an afternoon.

We are constantly being put to the test by trying circumstances and difficult people and problems not necessarily of our own making.

My breakthrough as a reader was when I discovered the European adventure story writers - Alexander Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, to name a few.

A world in which elves exist and magic works offers greater opportunities to digress and explore.

I might add that you change as a person as you grow older, so you change as a writer, too.

What I want to write about has changed somewhat, and the scope of the storytelling has changed accordingly.

Even after Sword was published, I was still only thinking about the next book, Elfstones.

On the other hand, I still approach each book with the same basic plan in mind - to put some people under severe stress and see how they hold up.

In bad weather, I spent hours drawing action figures on paper, coloring them, backing them on cardboard, then cutting them out and creating whole stories around their lives.

We forget that what matters begins with the imagination.

My interests are different now than they were thirty years ago.

I want to kick-start your imagination and let you discover the places it can take you.

I remember one winter, when I was about five or six, I spent three days with another boy, tracking a bobcat that had been sighted in another county fifty miles away, but which I was sure had come into our neighborhood.

I didn't want readers to have to make allowances for what they couldn't see, but to be able to say to themselves that the fabric of the magic detailed was perfectly believable.

The future is an ever-shifting maze of possibilities until it becomes the present.

We must nurture and love, if life is to have any real meaning. But First we must find a way to survive against the things that prevent us from doing so.

But like the rest of the country, Maine has reached an impasse, for most of the mercury that fouls our skies, waters and land comes from outside our borders.

Education is the cornerstone of our communities and our country.

For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

The successful establishment of a buffer zone around Fort Carson will provide an example for other bases around the country as we seek to protect the training mission of the U.S. military while preserving critical habitats on our ranges.

Then, in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?

Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.

You look at the whole Human Rights questions, I happened to be there at just the right time when the country was awakening - this goes to the first question you asked - the whole country was awakening to a hundred years of injustice that hadn't been resolved yet.

It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against other religious, racial or economic groups.

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the -the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you're dealt?

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

The day cold and fair with a high easterly wind: we were visited by two Indians who gave us an account of the country and people near the Rocky mountains where they had been.

It was clear that the special interest groups in California really wanted the Chinese to be shut out of the country, because that was where the racial tension was the greatest.

Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.

To stop terrorists before the strike, we must do three things: deny them entry into the country, curtail their freedom of action inside the country, and deprive them of material and moral support from within the country.

As I think through the issue of funding the rebuilding of Iraq, I think about the analogy of a bankruptcy proceeding. There is no doubt that Iraq as a country is bankrupt.

I have some strategical vision, I could calculate some few moves ahead and I have an intellect that is badly missed in the country which is run by generals and colonels.

Yesterday in this country we had people die of hunger and malnutrition. In some parts of this country, the infant mortality rate rivals that of sub-Saharan Africa. We have a public education system that ranks below that of almost any other Western nation.