You must learn to heed your senses. Humans use but a tiny percentage of theirs. They barely look, they rarely listen, they never smell, and they think that they can only experience feelings through their skin. But they talk, oh, do they talk.

When I said that I was king of forwards, you've got to understand that I don't come up with this stuff. I just forward it along. You wouldn't arrest a guy who was just passing drugs from one guy to another.

When I retire, I don't want to just move to some island somewhere. I want to be the guy who gives it all back. I want it to be like, 'Hey who donated that hospital wing that's saving so many lives?' 'I don't know. It was anonymous.' 'Well, guess what. It was Michael Scott.' 'But how do you know? It was anonymous.' 'Because I'm him.

I am thrilled when I read about fans using my stories as springboards to read about either the historical characters or the myths and legends in the books.

I don't want somebody sucking up to me because they think I am going to help their career. I want them sucking up to me because they genuinely love me.

I have always been interested in mythology and history. The more I read, the more I realized that there have always been people at the edges of history that we know very little about. I wanted to use them in a story and bring them back into the public's consciousness. Similarly with mythology: everyone knows some of the Greek or Roman legends, and maybe some of the Egyptian or Norse stories too, but what about the other great mythologies: the Celtic, Chinese, Native American?

Leader. Ship. The word 'ship' is hidden inside the word 'leadership,' as its... derivation.