Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Life was what you did with what was done to you.
I enjoy challenging myself in new and different ways.
I'm a naturally lazy person, and I live for a challenge.
We must rewrite our story from one of fear to one of celebration.
I'm the sort of writer who likes to leave doors open for readers.
I want to be constantly in awe of the possibilities of the universe.
Authors make stuff up. Let's not pretend it's any more magical than that.
There are no failed ideas, just ideas that haven't found their moment yet.
Know that you're gonna screw up, and be OK with it, and do better next time.
There is no greater threat to progress than the phrase, 'That's impossible.'
We don't fall in love with perfect people. We fall in love with complex ones.
I read and write speculative fiction because I want to go someplace really different.
I started writing books because I couldn't find the books I wanted to read on the shelf.
It was strange how you didn’t realise how much you loved a place until you had lost it completely.
Watching the progression and backlash against feminism even since 1970 will give you a serious case of whiplash.
Let’s just put it this way: if you think there’s a thing – anything – women didn’t do in the past, you’re wrong.
I want to write books that keep people up at night, where they cry through the first forty pages and keep reading anyway.
I started writing 'God's War' knowing that I wanted to write about real people on a resource-strapped planet at perpetual war.
Historically, science-fiction and fantasy literature is no stranger to controversy, but it has learned how to adapt and endure.
Pen names have always fascinated me, in part because I understand the professional and economic and even societal reasons to do so.
I've always been interested in the politics of war. War is one of those things that, the longer I studied it, the more illogical it seemed.
I don't like to write about things that bore me, and that means I steer far clear of writing books that are just like what's on the shelves.
Authors are often sent a number of books to read for possible review and advance praise. It can be easy for new books to get lost in the pile.
As for the best '80s action movie, I'm going to be predictable here and say 'Die Hard.' I watch that movie at least twice a year. Perfect script.
What makes a book unique isn't always about having one big grand new idea. It's about combining many different ideas in new and interesting ways.
Folks will always, always, always go back to the comfortable status quo, with its silent voices and lack of conflict, if you give them the chance.
'The Stars are Legion' is part space opera, part thriller, about two warring families battling it out for control over a legion of organic starships.
Creating a future requires a profound and yes, unrealistic, vision of what is possible. But it is fantasy and wonder that drive technology and innovation.
One of the things I stress to those I meet, especially young people, is that we are the heroes of our own lives, and we can be the masters of our own stories.
Before I wrote 'God's War,' I probably did eight years of research into the Middle East, Judaism, Islam, Catholicisim, and all sorts of fabulous other things.
People interest me a lot: why we are kind, why we are cruel, how we learn the difference, what makes us act in ways contrary to those we've been socialized with.
I know a lot of writers who tell me they 'always' knew how to read. They can't remember a time before reading. And those writers make me want to tear my hair out.
What I found so captivating about the idea of being a writer was having the ability to write down all these things I made up in my head so other people could see them.
When I was a kid, I watched a lot of 'Twilight Zone.' My mother was obsessed with the show, as it was a staple of her childhood - and thus she made it one of ours, too.
This is the biggest trick of the sort of thing I write: creating fun, powerful stories with tons of interesting stuff going socially and culturally that doesn't overly confuse the reader.
I'm incredibly pleased to be working with Marco Palmieri and Tor Books on 'The Geek Feminist Revolution.' This was an exciting book to pitch and is proving to be a lot of fun to put together.
The reality is that much of the stuff you see in film, television, comics, and children's cartoons got its start inside the inspired, disruptive halls of science-fiction and fantasy literature.
Many people don't even want to start something until they feel fairly confident that they will be a success at it. But me? I love to throw myself into things headfirst and fail all over the place.
Human beings thrive on imagination and pushing boundaries and limitations. Imposing limits when we don't actually have any true idea of what's possible is like imposing a steel trap over the mind.
I understand that space travel and expansion is just as much about altering ourselves, our attitudes, our social structures, our very biology, as it is about altering the places we choose to live.
Once readers and industry professionals have you pegged down as writing a particular type of book, they are less likely to try something new from you if they decided they didn't like the first one.
I'm terribly particular about what I read: lush writing, secondary world or seriously far-out science fiction, strong worldbuilding, dynamic characters. I need to have it all for it to work for me.
I think anger of any kind is valuable. It's all about learning how to channel it. The worst thing we can do is get bored or complacent or worse - suppress our anger and then see it burst forth in unhealthy ways.
What history taught me is that societies are not static and that the straight line of progressive ideals - this thinking we have that a society will just magically become more egalitarian over time - is patently false.
As a science fiction and fantasy writer, I used to love writing bleak, grimdark futures full of bleak, grimdark people. But I've found that as the world around me darkens, all I really want to do is grasp for more light.
I can't change the preconceived notions a reader brings to a work, but I can do my best to be aware of, address, and subvert tropes and expectations that readers may have as best I can and hope I don't screw it up too much.
Writers of all things speculative have played in alternate and parallel worlds for a long time - everyone from Stephen King to Philip Pullman to Tanith Lee - and it's an obsession that likely isn't going away any time soon.
Shaka Zulu had an all-female force of fighters. Women have been part of every resistance movement. Women dressed as men and went to war, went to sea, and participated actively in combat for as long as there have been people.
My parents both worked full-time flipping burgers at the local fast-food joint, and my grandmother looked after us. English was her second language, so instead of books, I learned spoken French nursery rhymes and curse words.
Being a writer, writing for a living, is one long persistence game. Everyone wants you to quit. Quite often, you want to quit. You get kicked down. You come up swinging. You keep going. Either you are committed to it, or you aren't.