If I were to write Web now, it would be a much, much darker book.

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.

The visit, like all visits home for a long time now, has been an obscure failure. When is it we cease to be able to go back, truly go back? What secret door is it that closes?

We hope that the plain people - the labourers and small farmers - will take this opportunity of coming together and working out the National programme.

I caught my wife in bed with my best friend the other day. I was crushed. They could have waited till I'd got out.

I have never really liked gigantic-scale painting. I think that so many artists are seduced by scale - "Well, if I make it that big then it has to go in a museum."

He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit.

The thing about writing in America is that writers in America have an arc. You enter writing as a career, you expect to be successful, and really it's the wrong thing. It's not a profession.

As some species die out, forms better adapted to utilize the obstacles against which they struggled in vain come into being.

Even though Christmas can be a lot of work, we all know the bustle is worth the bother.

I love to cook and entertain.

The movie industry used to be completely accessible. We all knew people in it, and nobody made a big fuss.