Advances have fallen, generally, for everything except the biggest potential bestsellers. Given all the changes, both economic and technological, SF hasn't done too badly.

The thing all writers do best is find ways to avoid writing.

Where lies the line between sorcery and science? It is only a matter of terminology, my friend.

Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.

Keep writing. Try to do a little bit every day, even if the result looks like crap. Getting from page four to page five is more important than spending three weeks getting page four perfect.

It is always hard when reality intrudes on belief.

Spontaneity is one of the joys of existence, especially if you prepare for it in advance.

In one book, CACHALOT, just for my own amusement, every character is based directly on someone I have known.

How much research I have to do depends on the nature of the story. For fantasy, none at all.

If you're crazy, there's two things you can do to make yourself feel better: One is to get yourself cured. The other is to make everyone you have to deal with crazy.

The universe is full of dead people who lived by assumption.

Because it's much more pleasant to be obsessed over how the hero gets out of his predicament than it is over how I get out of mine.

Difficulty of subsistence made the invaders reduce the numbers of the army to a point at which it might live on the country during the prosecution of the war.

do you reckon to win the everlasting laurels without a conflict?

U.K. companies are in very international and very competitive markets. If you look at PC penetration in the U.K., it is very similar to the United States market.

O to be in finland/ now that russia's here)

Got to be the worst place in the world, inside a oven. You in here, you either cleaning or you getting cooked.

I think most dancers would agree that the art of ballet chooses the dancer, not the other way around.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

As a conservative who believes in limited government, I believe that the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press.