I write fantasy because it's there. I have no other excuse for sitting down for several hours a day indulging my imagination. Daydreaming. Thinking up imaginary people, impossible places.

Imagination is the golden-eyed monster that never sleeps. It must be fed; it cannot be ignored.

Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.

It’s an odd thing, happiness. Some people take happiness from gold. Or black pearls. And some of us, far more fortunate, take their happiness from periwinkles.

There was the gaudy patch of sunflowers beside the west gate of the palace of the Prince of Ombria, that did nothing all day long but turn their golden-haired, thousand-eyed faces to follow the sun.

She is our moon. Our tidal pull. She is the rich deep beneath the sea, the buried treasure, the expression in the owl's eye, the perfume in the wild rose. She is what the water says when it moves.

The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more.

Night is not something to endure until dawn. It is an element, like wind or fire. Darkness is its own kingdom; it moves to its own laws, and many living things dwell in it.

Words, he decided, were inadequate at best, impossible at worst. They meant too many things. Or they meant nothing at all.

Love and anger are like land and sea: They meet at many different places.

That's the beginning of magic. Let your imagination run and follow it.

I fight evil, and words are my weapons of choice.

Emotional pain, physical damage, financial weakness are the reasons to stop for a while and not forever.

Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world?

Opportunities are everywhere.

Science fiction has these obsessions with certain sciences - large scale engineering, neuroscience.

There are rhythmic ideas which sometimes only work up to a point. In writing there are moments when it just comes off the page, it's not just a collection of notes.

Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.

Books, I found, had the power to make time stand still, retreat or fly into the future.

Work to learn. Don't work for money.

There's so many great, fantastic compliments I need to give that girl. Three words isn't enough.