I don't like books that play to the gallery, but I've become more concerned with telling a story as clearly and engagingly as I can.

History could claw upward as well as down. The powerful could be deafened by the cries of the poor.

As though she had entered a fable, as though she were no more than words crawling along a dry page, or as though she were becoming that page itself, that surface on which her story would be written and across which there blew a hot and merciless wind, turning her body to papyrus, her skin to parchment, her soul to paper.

I have always thought, the secret purpose of the book tour is to make the writer hate the book he's written. And, as a result, drive him to write another book.

Science fiction is where I started out, really. When I was a kid, I was a complete addict of science fiction. It was one of my earliest interests as a writer, and I've just taken a long time to circle back around to it.

You never know the answers to the questions of life until you are asked.

The sixty-minute drama form has become very rich.