My theory on genre is that while there are people out there who believe that genre tells people what to read, actually I believe that genre exists as a marketing tool to tell you what to avoid.

Pain shared, my brother, is pain not doubled but halved. No man is an island

I walk across the dreaming sands under the pale moon: through the dreams of countries and cities, past dreams of places long gone and times beyond recall.

The truth is, it's not the idea, it's never the idea, it's always what you do with it.

My parents would frisk me before family events. Before weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, and what have you. Because if they didn't, then the book would be hidden inside some pocket or other and as soon as whatever it was got under way I'd be found in a corner. That was who I was...that was what I did. I was the kid with the book.

"Only write what you know" is very good advice. I do my best to stick to it. I wrote about gods and dreams and America because I knew about them. And I wrote about what it's like to wander into Faerie because I knew about that. I wrote about living underneath London because I knew about that too. And I put people into the stories because I knew them: the ones with pumpkins for heads, and the serial killers with eyes for teeth, and the little chocolate people filled with raspberry cream and the rest of them.

Richard wondered how the marquis managed to make being pushed around in a wheelchair look like a romantic and swashbuckling thing to do.