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

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.

Mutual respect! That's what it takes to be friends.

I love clothes and do sort of change my wardrobe a lot. But a thousand dollar jacket? I'd rather spend it on an experience, like traveling.

I love festivals in that people seem to let their hair down more. I love that people run from stage to stage. I love going as a performer because you get to see band that you wouldn't necessarily go see.

When we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something... but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, that is when we join the fashionable madmen.

All our emotions are real, but one has to be quite cautious with what supports their reality.

The difference between a bland tomato and great one is immense, much like the difference between a standard, sliced white bread and a crusty, aromatic sourdough.

It's funny, I used to do a character that was just a baby - just an adult baby. I would get up onstage and complain about adult stuff, but as a baby. I was in a diaper, and I would require hugs from the audience and reassurance and stuff.

Usually, I don't want to sit down and listen to the director gas on about his movie. I just can't actually imagine myself sitting down and having that much to say.

I will always remember this summer day in Paris, when I was to perform a great acrobatic move. I can still see myself stepping on the ring of a packed circus along real performers.

Martin Lawrence had no filter, and to me that was the greatest half hour of all time. Martin was ahead of his time.

Constructive complaint requires only two things: that what you are complaining about should be different, and that it can be different. It sounds simple, but too often our protests fail this test.

I am not a religious person myself, but I did look for nature. I had spent my first sabbatical in New York City. Looked for something different for the second one. Europe and the U.S. didn't really feel enticing because I knew them too well. So Asia it was. The most beautiful landscapes I had seen in Asia were Sri Lanka and Bali.

I do think that the days of gathering around a television set that functions merely as a television set, to receive a live broadcast of some networked programming, those days are probably numbered.

It's ironic - people used to want to suspend me and talk about how bad my behaviour was, but now they like it when I shout and scream.

My approach to deciding cases is I look at the law, I look at the facts, and I do my best to apply the law to the facts and make a decision based on the law and the facts.

Distortions control my self-image, like they do for a lot of us. It's irrational.