All of our lives are governed by a certain degree of faith in bullshit.

It is a mystery, and to tell the truth, I am intrigued by mysteries even if this is to be my last week of enjoying them. I would welcome some glimmer of understanding but, failing that, working on the puzzle will suffice.

Mystery. The strangeness of place so necessary to some creative spirits. A perfect mixture of the classical utopia and the pagan mystery.

I knew that I wanted to be a writer even before I knew exactly what being a writer entailed

What, after all, is more real to us than the geography of our childhoods?

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.

The Victorians, they were like the Germans in World War II. They could not stop recording details about their lives and their age.