The reason that I like SF and fantasy and horror is that to me it's the pulp wing of surrealism. That's the aesthetic of undermining and creative alienation that I really go for.

I have danced with the spider. I have cut a caper with the dancing mad god.

I do, however, feel reasonably strongly the sense that the job of a piece of argumentative scholarly non-fiction is not the same as the job of a piece of fiction.

Ever since I was two, I've loved octopuses, monsters, abandoned buildings.

Scars are memory. Like sutures. They stitch the past to me.

Any moment called NOW is always full of possibles.

Fantasy and science fiction can be literal as well as allegorical and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a monster like a giant squid for what it is, as well as searching for metaphor.

My job is not to try to give readers what they want but to try to make readers want what I give.

I'll never be a minimalist. The fact that the prose is more tightly controlled doesn't for a minute mean that it's minimalist. I very much like arcane words and baroque sentence structure.

A scholar can never let mere wrongness get in the way of the theory.

My sustenance is information. My interventions are hidden. I increase as I learn. I compute, so I am.

And is usually true of a man of one idea, [Charles] became obsessed.

Homeschool doesn’t give you a get out of teenage jail free card. It justgives you fewer opportunities to become the butt of someone’s lame Facebook joke.

This world is bad enough maybe; We do not comprehend it; But in one fact can all agree God won't, and we can't mend it.

All men are children, and of one family.

I'm not offended if you call me an African American. I prefer a black American.

Take from me the hope that I can change the future and you will send me mad.

I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want.

There's always that one guy that you will always go back to. Even though you date other people in between, you are always in the back of your mind hoping to run into that guy.

Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman - repose in energy. The Greek battle pieces are calm; the heroes, in whatever violent actions engaged, retain a serene aspect.

I don't want to be one of those guys that you see who made $4 million, invested $3.5 million, and now you work at Wendy's.