...the landscape inside Lord of the Rings was so stunning and so stupendous that it could be absorbed as a form of nourishment.

If it weren't for greed, intolerance, hate, passion and murder, you would have no works of art, no great buildings, no medical science, no Mozart, no Van Gough, no Muppets and no Louis Armstrong.

Sometimes I don't know whether I'm thening or nowing.

Fiction wouldn't be much fun without its fair share of scoundrels, and they have to live somewhere.

Lesson one in time travel, Thursday. First of all, we are all time travellers. The vast majority of us manage only one day per day.

Writing needs to be practiced; there is a limit to how much can be gleaned from a teacher or a manual. The true essence of writing is out there, in the world, and inside, within yourself. To write, you have to give.

There is a certain degree of steampunkishness that creeps into my books.