I'm very happy that the New York Times has spoken well of my stuff; who wouldn't be? But it's not a choice I made.

We're not lost. We're locationally challenged

We're all living on borrowed time. The trick is to come up with works of sufficient interest to pay off the debt.

There are people who believe in an absolutely transparent prose; with every respect for clarity of expression, I don't.

Observe, don't imitate.

The language fictional characters use is chosen for effect, at least if the author is concentrating.

At one point I intended to write precursor and sequel novels, about the establishment of the Web and its next evolution, but I am very unlikely to now; they would take place in a different universe.

Every book is three books, after all; the one the writer intended, the one the reader expected, and the one that casts its shadow when the first two meet by moonlight.

Well, it's an adventure story, and a Bildungsroman, of course, but there was also the intention to describe a culture that had been seen in rather narrow terms.

Creating the fictional background for a game world isn't significantly different from creating a background for fiction.

Sometimes the reader will decide something else than the author's intent; this is certainly true of attempts to empirically decipher reality.

Love opens your heart, trumps fear, and paves the way for healing in all aspects of your life.

A misfit is like the round peg that cannot fit into the square hole or the running river that just can’t stay still.

Technology is cool, but you've got to use it as opposed to letting it use you.

My mom raised me to never have anything control me.

My theory is, strong people don't need strong leaders.

There is not so agonizing a feeling in the whole catalogue of human suffering as the first conviction that the heart of the being whom we most tenderly love is estranged from us.

Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me.

Time is man made - No woman would have ever invented time.

But although Australia was also involved in the Vietnam conflict, I can remember my dad telling us that if we were in Australia, we wouldn't be drafted until we were 20.

When a country is strong... it accepts any dose of pessimism from its writers.