So there’s a freeing up that happens when I can go into that storytelling mode...It isn’t about how much sense you make, it is about how compelling you are. (interview)

Beauty and ingenuity beat perfection hands down, every time.

I don't pay much mind to politricks. Never met a politician who wouldn't try to convince you that salt was sugar.

I'm looking for stories that make me sit up and take notice. For engagement with language and style in ways that the genre doesn't see enough of.

I’m going to check the world’s best source for spawning new urban legends, the Internet. What, you thought I couldn’t even type? The Web is just another threshold between one world and another.

When your elders are millennia-old demigods, you’d best take the injunction to respect your elders seriously.

Children were pack animals; let any one of them act different from the group, and the rest would bring him down.

When people ask me to define science fiction and fantasy I say they are the literatures that explore the fact that we are toolmakers and users, and are always changing our environment.

I'd like to find great stories from as many parts of the world as possible.

The heaviness of loss in her heart hadn't eased, but there was room there for humour, too.

Mid-range, androgynous voice. I first thought that Solaris was a guy. Then a girl. Maybe. Then I gave up trying to figure out which. It would become obvious at some point, or not.

I ken who you are! You're Strathfearn's granddaughter. Julie Stuart, is it? Och, aye, Lady Julia! Well then, Lady Julia, tell me -- who don't you deserve a glass of water?

To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.

We are all expressions of our own minds, projected onto the world.

The mere knowledge of secrets will not help the amateur conjurer very far on the road to success.

I'm off to save the universe again. It's a tough job but someone has to do it, and I'm glad it's me.

A lot of songs I sang to crowds to get their reaction. That's how I knew they'd hit.

I wouldn't characterize anybody who fought in Vietnam as a war hero. In 23 bombing sorties, there must have been civilians that were killed and there's no heroism to that.

Do we always, always to the point of misery, do a thing?

It is not altogether wrong to say that there is no such thing as a bad photograph - only less interesting, less relevant, less mysterious ones.

I have certainly faced my fair share and will likely come across more. These experiences have been fuel for my music. Facing these challenges has forced me to recognize my own inner strength.