I make art, sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all.

I like 'pencil-necked weasel'. It has 'pencil' in it. Pencils are good things. You can draw or write things with pencils. I think it's what you call someone when you're worried that using a long word like 'intellectual' may have too many syllables. It's not something that people who have serious, important things to say call other people.

You don't have to test everything to destruction just to see if you made it right.

I started out writing much more science fictiony stuff and writing about science fiction.

If you cared enough about your characters, what happened to them was interesting... it's important to care about them, about who they are and what they do...I don't really care whose side they are on, and they can be monstrous on the outside or, worse, on the inside, but you still have to want to spend time with them.

Only the phoenix rises and does not descend. And everything changes. And nothing is truly lost.

A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick -- a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.