I don't like allegory.

The problem with most genre fantasy is that it's not nearly fantastic enough. It's escapist, but it can't escape.

My job is not to try to give readers what they want but to try to make readers want what I give.

It had not been a long journey, but the memory of it filled her like an infection. She had felt tethered by time to the city behind her, so that the minutes stretched out taut as she moved away, and slowed the farther she got, dragging out her little voyage.

Ever since I was two, I've loved octopuses, monsters, abandoned buildings.

I feel fantastically geeky. [But] I'm not one of those people who's enormously proud of being a geek, but nor am I particularly ashamed of it.

I'm a very friendly socialist.