Living frugally is one of the best things an author can do to prepare for their career.

One of the many things that surprised me about Wool is how many of its fans don't consider themselves science fiction readers.

He’d only ever seen a gun once, a smaller one on the hip of that old deputy, a gun he’d always figured was more for show. He stuffed a fistful of deadly rounds in his pocket, thinking how each one could end an individual life, and understanding why such things were forbidden. Killing a man should be harder than waving a length of pipe in their direction. It should take long enough for one’s conscience to get in the way.

My life is too tight, he wanted to say. My skin is too tight. The walls are too tight.

Statistics were magic like this: they could tell you with near-certainty that a thing would occur, without a hint of when or where.

When there’s only God to blame, we forgive him. When it’s our fellow man, we destroy him.

It was the hubris of each generation to think this anew, to think that their time was special, that all things would come to an end with them.