I write a very rough first draft of every chapter, then I rewrite every chapter. I try to get it down in the first rewrite, but some chapters I can't get quite right the third time. There are some I go over and over and over again.

You should let dialogue get as nearly out of control as you can. Characters should say what they say to each other instead of what they mean to say. The worst purpose of dialogue is to elicit information: "You know why we're out on this space station, Carruthers - to save the universe!"

The process of creating is related to the process of dreaming although when you are writing you're doing it and when you're dreaming, it's doing you.

I try very hard to be fair, and I look for ironies. In a way, I live on ironies as a novelist.

When rewriting, move quickly. It's a little like cutting your own hair.

I think there's a necessity for some attachment to the spiritual world and, in a way, people really have to have it.

What you're trying to do when you write is to crowd the reader out of his own space and occupy it with yours, in a good cause. You're trying to take over his sensibility and deliver an experience that moves from mere information.