Genre labels are useful only insofar as they help you find an audience.

The big battle at the end of DW isn't drawn from history, but it's influenced by history, certainly.

I've learned that I get blocked when my subconscious mind is telling me that I've taken the work in a wrong direction, and that once I start listening to what my subconscious is trying to tell me, I can work out the problem and get moving again.

For every SF reader of that period, Robert A. Heinlein was also a touchstone.

How long it takes to write a book depends on its length.

It's a tough job to tell a story when the audience already knows the ending, and the ending is bleak.

I was pretty much grown-up by the time I attended school in Britain - or as grown-up as I'll ever get.

Being a writer was never a choice, it was an irresistible compulsion.

The Internet offers an interesting combination of advertising and community by participating in the community you can become an advertisement for yourself.

Working within the limitations of the shared world generally made the writing easier, because I didn't have to invent any of the characters or background, which is usually the hardest part.

When state and religion are one, religion becomes a means for the powerful to remain in power.

It's hard to generalize, because they're all different. When I started, I decided to take as much advantage as I could of the freedom offered by the SF field.

The mass-market paperback, for one, is too expensive.

I went to college, though I didn't take many writing courses.

I've experienced writer's block, but never for more than a few days.

I found college useful for a lot of other reasons. It exposed me to a great many influences I wouldn't otherwise have encountered, and gave me a lot of time with some very intelligent people whose thoughts are still with me.

Everything that you read is an influence on everything you write, and you want to draw as many elements into your work as you can.

Now I have to motivate myself much more than I had previously.

That's why editors and publishers will never be obsolete: a reader wants someone with taste and authority to point them in the direction of the good stuff, and to keep the awful stuff away from their door.

I wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember.

Even if you only want to write science fiction, you should also read mysteries, poetry, mainstream literature, history, biography, philosophy, and science.

If you can find collaborators whose strengths compliment your own, the result can be more than the sum of its authors.

I'm not afraid of werewolves or vampires or haunted hotels, I'm afraid of what real human beings to do other real human beings.

Try to meet as many authors, agents, and editors as you can.

An SF author who reads only SF will have little new to contribute, but someone with a broader experience will bring more to the table.

I want a platform that, like a book or a magazine, I can carry into the bath or leave at the beach.

I now have to find a reason to write, every single day.

I'm in favor of any technology that makes my work available to the reading public at a reasonable price.

The Rift, which was well over a thousand pages of manuscript, took two years.

I can't speak for the other authors, but what I hoped to achieve was to illuminate certain corners of the Lucas universe that hadn't yet been explored.

Genre labels are useful only insofar as they help you find an audience.

Science fiction readers probably have the gene for novelty, and seem to enjoy a cascade of invention as much as a writer enjoys providing one.

Some of my ideas were shot down by Lucasfilm because they stepped on territory that has been reserved for the movies. I didn't have a problem with that.

I want the municipality to be a helping hand to the man with a desire of sympathy, to help the fallen when it is not in their power to help themselves.

Corporate partners help UNICEF fund our programmes for children, advocate with us on their behalf, or facilitate our work through logistical, technical, research or supply support.

Before and during the first phase of the war his administration repeatedly maligned the UN but now, that Iraq has turned into a quagmire, it is asking the UN for help.

Sitting at home the way I do, I'd just love the hear from people. It'd be a great help in passing the time.

Humor can help you cope with the unbearable so that you can stay on the bright side of things until the bright side actually comes along.

It was an idea we had when Al was in the Senate - to organize and moderate an annual conference that would look at government policy through the lens of the family to help identify ways that the family can be supported and strengthened.

The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business.

For me, romance isn't an over-the-top act. It's someone offering to help and to support me. Or if that person thinks I'm making the wrong decision, he'll tell me. I want him to be honest, because being that honest takes a lot of guts.

I've always thought that if Israel really wanted to solve the problem, they'd just start tomorrow and push right to the Jordan River, and anything in their way goes. They don't need America or someone else to help.

So many people always try to help me carry my luggage and help me do things I can do myself. If I can do it myself, I'm going to do it myself. I'm not going to let other people do it for me, and I think that's a big part of where I came from. I'm not a real prissy girl.

Doorman - a genius who can open the door of your car with one hand, help you in with the other, and still have one left for the tip.

We would certainly welcome the recipient nation to put their inspectors on our shores, if they wanted to make that investment to help protect that shipment that is outgoing.

Stop relying only on technology.Technology can help the qualified, well-trained human being but cannot replace him.

The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball - the further I am rolled the more I gain.

Several million people inside and outside Afghanistan are destitute and desperately in need of help.

I've spent my career trying to help people without connections understand what's going on so that they have a chance of getting a fair shake from the connected and the powerful.