If you had an alien race that looked like insects, then they would build robots to look like themselves, not to look like people.

The best place to start an adventure is with a quiet, perfect life . . . and someone who realizes that it can’t possibly be enough.

My total year's income from working as hard as I possibly could from writing went from like $30 one year to about $70 the next year. And it made me realize that maybe you couldn't really pay the rent that way.

I want to make it so that so many things happen... that you didn't expect would happen in this series, that you realize that you have to read every one of them.

I wanted the feel in these books to be like an epic fantasy, with kings, queens, dukes and court politics, but of course like what I was explaining before, about making the science make sense, you have to make the politics make sense, too.

There is grand romance in The Lord of the Rings. It's an important part of epic literature.

Wouldn't you like to have an augmented memory chip that you could plug into your head so you don't have to look everything up and remember everything?