Neophyte writers tend to believe that there is something magical about ideas and that if they can just get a hold of a good one, then their futures are ensured.

I've read short stories that are as dense as a 19th century novel and novels that really are short stories filled with a lot of helium.

I'm dense when it comes to discouragement.

I do have a small collection of traditional SF ideas which I've never been able to sell. I'm known as a fantasy writer and neither my agent nor my editors want to risk my brand by jumping genre.

Ideas aren't magical; the only tricky part is holding on to one long enough to get it written down.

I'm a writer first and an editor second... or maybe third or even fourth. Successful editing requires a very specific set of skills, and I don't claim to have all of them at my command.

A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story.

When I'm not writing or tweaking my computer, I do embroidery. When I'm not plunging into the past, tweaking, or embroidering, I'm reading books about history, computers, or embroidery.

During the many centuries that magic, here on this planet, was presumed to have worked, there were at least as many theories as to how magic worked as there were cultures and religions.

There is nothing that compares to an unexpected round of applause.

I think my prose reads as if English were my second language. By the time I get to the end of a paragraph, I'm dodging bullets and gasping for breath.

The funny thing about the heart is a soft heart is a strong heart, and a hard heart is a weak heart.

...I fear their false urgency, their call to speed, their insistence that travel is less important than arrival...

Why can't love be a fairy tale?

Another thing I learned is that novels, even those from apparently distant times and places, remain current and enlightening, and also comforting.

For me the dream is the freedom to make all the crazy ideas I have in my head into movies. I truly love directing and I think it is a privilege to have this as an occupation.

Consider getting smaller in order to get bigger.

Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.

Actors make bad lovers. Their most important kiss is for the camera. Not in a superficial way, in a really deep way. They can only give everything if they know someone is going to shout cut!

A man who is not with a woman is a dead man.