Of course you don't make any noise in space, because there's no air.

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.

I've had the same, full-time assistant and typist for eight or nine years now. She's read everything I've written, she types everything and does a good job, translates it and makes comments.

I'm talking to you and it's basically a direct communication, whereas if I'm writing a letter to you and you read the letter, there are like 12 extra deconstruction and reconstruction steps in the communication.

Every spare second I would write, somehow. On my lunch hour, too.

I think now I'm up to something like 85 different titles that I've published.

When tending a vast and beautiful garden, you have to plant many seeds, never knowing ahead of time which ones will germinate, which will produce the most glorious flowers, which will bear the sweetest fruit. A good gardener plants them all, tends and nurtures them, and wishes them well. Optimism is the best fertilizer.