There are people who believe in an absolutely transparent prose; with every respect for clarity of expression, I don't.

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.

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.

There are readers who want every point to be clearly and unambiguously set forth, and there are those who want to pry ideas and meanings out for themselves.

She shrugs."Men""Men.""If we can send one man to the moon, why can't we send them all there?

People who found something to live and die for always live in the hope of success. They never allow doubts to create distances between them and their harvest time. That is also their decision.

Surrealism, then, neither aims to subvert realism, as does the fantastic, nor does it try to transcend it. It looks for different means by which to explore reality itself.

Who has chosen this kind world for us and why?

It strikes me as unfortunate that this approach - affording the same dignity to and investing in the same quality for a poor child as you would for your own - is so often received as provocative.

Movies are the biggest export in the world, the biggest American export. It influences people all over the world.

In humans, the family prevents infanticide. Next to language, the core family, consisting of a mother, a father and children, is the greatest difference between us and other primates.

There comes a certain point in life when you have to stop blaming other people for how you feel or the misfortunes in your life. You can't go through life obsessing about what might have been.

In reality, I never want to grow up.

When we place more value on what other people think of us than on what we think of ourselves, it’s a formula for misery.