I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born.

poetry is where the language is renewed.

Fear has a smell, as love does.

Speculative fiction encompasses that which we could actually do. Sci-fi is that which we're probably not going to see.

No male writer is likely to be asked to sit on a panel addressing itself to the special problems of a male writer.

Money as such is, as Oscar Wilde said, perfectly useless. You can't eat it, drink it, shelter yourself from the cold with it, wear it, or make love with it unless deeply disturbed. In and of itself, it has no emotions, no mind, and no conscience. It doesn't put out flowers or have children, and it makes a lousy pet. It has meaning only when it circulates, and is exchanged for other things; and money doesn't do that for itself. People do that, using money as a symbolic token.

There is something reassuring about the toilets. Bodily functions at least remain democratic. Everybody shits.