Fred Astaire is my hero. I love him because he was willing to kill himself to make his art look effortless. And because he proved it's possible to be an artist and a good person.

The entire range of human experience is present in a church choir, including, but not restricted to jealousy, revenge, horror, pride, incompetence (the tenors have never been on the right note in the entire history of church choirs, and the basses have never been on the right page), wrath, lust and existential despair.

When you're a writer, the question people always ask you is, "Where do you get your ideas?" Writers hate this question. It's like asking Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, "Where do you get your leeches?" You don't get ideas. Ideas get you.

I have great faith in the future of books - no matter what form they may take - and of science fiction.

One has not lived until one has carried a sixty-pound dog down a sweeping flight of stairs at half-past V in the morning.

Cats, as you know, are quite impervious to threats.

It is not an easy thing to put on a wet sock.