I practiced on the greatest model of storytelling we've got, which is "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." I told those stories many, many times.

Long before writing, people were telling each other stories and the audiobook goes all the way back to that tradition.

A professional writer is someone who writes just as well when they're not inspired as when they are.

As for what it's against - the story is against those who pervert and misuse religion, or any other kind of doctrine with a holy book and a priesthood and an apparatus of power that wields unchallengeable authority, in order to dominate and suppress human freedoms.

Her last conscious thought was disgust at life; her senses had lied to her. The world was not made of energy and delight but of foulness, betrayal, and lassitude. Living was hateful, and death was no better, and from end to end of the universe this was the first and last and only truth.

Writing is tyranny ... but reading is democracy.

Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature.