It doesn't matter whether characters are real people or not; if they're not vivid on the page, then the reader doesn't care about them that much, and, if the reader doesn't care about them that much, then they don't care what happens to them.

Science fiction is always a vehicle for ideas. It's the form which allows either movies or books to be an exploration of how we should live.

When we stop believing in the gods we can start believing in their stories.

If by some bizarre chance there turns out to be a god [...], I'm willing to bet he's an atheist too.

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 don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing.

Have you noticed the physical resemblance between Imran Khan and Gaddafi? If you were making a movie of the life of Gaddafi and you wanted a slightly better-looking version of Gaddafi, you might cast Imran Khan.