But heroes, at times, had to be fools.

I'm a morning person because I learned to write my novels while still practicing law. I would get to the office at 6:30 a.m. and write until other people arrived, around 9. Now I still do that. I start at 6:30 or 7, and I'll write until 11, then take an hour off, then work until about 2 p.m. By then my brain has had enough.

I love all of my children equally, all of my printed books, and each one bears a special piece of me. But the one Im most proud of is the one no one will ever see - the very first manuscript I ever wrote, back in 1990. It took me a year to do it.

I don't think my mum ever understood my love of Doctor Who. Surely her strongest memory would have been me, standing at the top of the stairs, crying about how the "jelly men" were going to get me? Sorry, Mum, for those sleepless nights, but it was with good reason they called it Terror of the Zygons.

Ninety-five percent of all writers who write do not get published, but 100 percent of all writers write because they have a voice in their head. The vast majority of writers simply write because they have to.

History serves as a model not only of who and what we are to be, we learn what to champion and what to avoid.

Study the past if you would define the future. --CONFUCIUS