I've been writing full-time since 1978.

The thing all writers do best is find ways to avoid writing.

Where lies the line between sorcery and science? It is only a matter of terminology, my friend.

Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.

Keep writing. Try to do a little bit every day, even if the result looks like crap. Getting from page four to page five is more important than spending three weeks getting page four perfect.

It is always hard when reality intrudes on belief.

Spontaneity is one of the joys of existence, especially if you prepare for it in advance.

In one book, CACHALOT, just for my own amusement, every character is based directly on someone I have known.

How much research I have to do depends on the nature of the story. For fantasy, none at all.

Advances have fallen, generally, for everything except the biggest potential bestsellers. Given all the changes, both economic and technological, SF hasn't done too badly.

If you're crazy, there's two things you can do to make yourself feel better: One is to get yourself cured. The other is to make everyone you have to deal with crazy.

who wants flowers when youre dead? nobody.

Then I will speak upon the ashes.

A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.

Be the sun in someone’s dark sky.

I am very much a people person. If I am in a beautiful place but I don't like the people, I am miserable.

One of the ideas that runs through this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] is this Buddhist notion that the mind is incredibly powerful; not the brain but the mind.

Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint.

You just have to be strong and don't be stupid; freedom of choice is a big responsibility.

They don't know what they're in for at Spence, getting me, a ghost of a girl who'll nod and smile and take her tea but who isn't really here.