Writing is not something you can do or you can't. It's not even something that 'other people do' or 'for smart people only' or even 'for people who finished school and went to University'. Nonsense. Anyone can do it. But no-one can do it straight off the bat. Like plastering, brain surgery or assembling truck engines, you have to do a bit of training - get your hands dirty - and make some mistakes.

For an author just starting out, you've got to deliver the goods every year or sooner or people will forget you or you will lose momentum. There is a contract that exists between author and reader.

Quarkbeasts, for all their fearsome looks, are obedient to a fault. They are nine-tenths velociraptor and kitchen blender and one-tenth Labrador. It was the Labrador tenth that I valued most.

I have a very varied taste in music. Everything from rap to classical to Latino to Rat Pack to jazz.

If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction-and ultimately, without a major resolution.

Writing is a subtle art that is reached mostly by self-discovery and experimentation.

Religion isn't the cause of wars, it's the excuse.