I like your manly bravado," she said. "Do it some more.

The good thing about working on the books for 14 years before they hit the shelves is that I worked out most of the kinks long before they were published.

Did I ever mention I used to be a delivery driver too? I was. I can read a map. What’s more, using a brilliant mixture of zen navigation, Aristotelian logic, and pure rage I can get you your package and/or delicious sandwich relatively close to on-time.

It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.

The thing that helps me do a good job is that I don't feel the need to explain everything about the world to my reader. I'm not writing a history text on the Four Corners. I'm telling a story that's set there. The setting belongs in the background for the most part, and it's easy for fantasy authors to forget that. That's one of the unfortunate parts of Tolkien's legacy, in my opinion. Read the first hundred pages of the Fellowship of the Ring and you start to get pissed, "Shut up about the Shire's museums! Isn't the world supposed to be in peril or something?"

When someone tells you a piece of their life, they're giving you a gift, not granting you your due.

If you are going to impose your will on the world, you must have control over what you believe.