People, particularly big men carrying big rifles, don't expect lip from a scrawny thing like me. They always look a bit dazed when they get it.

Grief had its own life, took its own sustenance.

I wanted to believe anything so that I wouldn’t have to face the future alone. The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak.

I think the first trick to writing a feminist work is to write plenty of women. That way you get to write characters, instead of worrying about paradigms.

Don't argue. Never deign to deny. Meet insults with laughter.

Weakness is a guise. Wear it when they need to know you're human, but never when you feel it.

My stories usually begin with the characters and some elements of how power (personal, political, magical) functions in the world. The rest develops as I write, and research helps a great deal with that. If you're going to write about an agrarian economy, research agrarian economies. If your main character is starving, then you should know what it means for a malnourished body to break down.