When I get about five readers I can rub together in one genre, I leave that genre and go somewhere else. And this is due to a vow that I made myself when I started writing - that if I had any success at all, I would not be bound to one form of writing. That I would write what moves me. The only way I can see me surviving and doing more than one book is to present the readers with a Dan Simmons novel, with whatever tropes and protocols from whatever genre I want to borrow them. If that builds a Dan Simmons readership, well then, okay. Otherwise, forget about it. I'd rather drive a truck.
Dan SimmonsA token of ecological awareness in a society devoted to self destruction and waste but unwilling to acknowledge its indulgent ways.
Dan SimmonsNo one inspired me to write, but writer Harlan Ellison terrified me into getting published.
Dan SimmonsThe life of a poet lies not merely in the finite language-dance of expression but in the nearly infinite combinations of perception and memory combined with the sensitivity to what is perceived and remembered.
Dan SimmonsThe pack of media brayed and bellowed outside the house for seven weeks. Sol realized then what he had known and forgotten about very small communities: they were frequently annoying, always parochial, sometimes prying on a one-to-one level, but never had they subscribed to the vicious legacy of the so-called "public's right to know".
Dan Simmons