Do you want Columbus to go across the ocean, or do you want to put a message in a bottle and hope that it lands somewhere? I'd rather have actual people be there. Whether they look like Americans or like the inhabitants of some other country, depends on who has the most drive.

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.

Well, I know that George Lucas doesn't like it at all. When I was working on The Illustrated Star Wars Universe, he told me that he would be happy if every copy could be tracked down and smashed.

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

We must think beyond ourselves

I mean, I wasn't stupid. I knew we'd make money and sell a lot of Dune books.

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