In a certain sense, this guy - who is one of the most evil people in the book - he's not really that bad at running the show, because he knows what he's doing, he's smart and he's got the big picture in mind. He's like the Godfather.

Sure, President Bush can say that the U.S. government won't fund stem cell research, but believe me, Japan is applauding. Because they will just do it first and get all the patents.

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 will come a time of fire and night, when enemies rise and empires fall, when the stars themselves begin to die.

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

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

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.