Listen to the way people talk. If your characters sound real the rest is easy.
Call it my little gesture toward social conscience, but I like to think I’m teaching a certain number of people to read. Now that sounds pretentious!
I hesitate to predict whether this theory is true. But if the general opinion of Mankind is optimistic then we’re in for a period of extreme popularity for science fiction.
I’ve fallen back on this periodically, although I must say that getting out of the grocery business ranked right up there with getting out of the army as one of the happier experiences of my life.
This is terrible, when a writer is bored by his own work, but it was a real bomb and had reached the point where I couldn’t even stand to look at it any more.
All social workers want is to get everyone involved in a programme. Because a programme provides full employment for three generations of social workers. And they mess up.
I get up at an unholy hour in the morning my work day is completed by the time the sun rises. I have a slightly bad back which has made an enormous contribution to American literature.
Reed College required a thesis for a Bachelor’s degree. Normally a Bachelor’s is sort of like being stamped ‘Prime US Beef.’ They just walk you through, hand out the diplomas and you fill in your name later on.
You’ll drive yourself crazy if you start trying to pry the meaning out of every gust of wind or rain squall. I’m not denying that there might actually be a few signs that you won’t want to miss. Knowing the difference is the tricky part.
I taught in a small teacher’s college for three or four years, at which point all the administrators got a pay raise and the teaching faculty didn’t.
I’m a storyteller, not a prophet. I’m just interested in a good story.
If the general opinion is pessimistic, fantasy is going to hold its own.
Isn’t it easier to forgive than to hate? -Eriond.
I want a sword not a knitting needle -Kalen.
Nobles and peasants marry early. Businessmen tend to wait.
It’s all very well to put the government in the hands of the perfect man, but what do you do when the perfect man gets a bellyache?
Nothing that ever happens is so unimportant that it doesn’t change things.
All I knew was that I would die if he sent me away. He shrugged. You can cut a man’s heart out with a shrug, did you know that?
Impatience is a poor substitute for a well-considered plan.
The whole world is beautiful, Belgarion’ Eriond assured him in response to that unspoken thought. ‘You just have to know how to look at it.
If you’d just try, I’m sure you’d be able to fly.