Never, dear gods. Never mess with mortals.

If all we seek is an escape, what does that say about the world we live in? That village, that city, that life? We are desperate with our dreams. What - oh, what - does that say?

You always fashioned yourself as the Empire's harshest Fist, didn't you, Korbolo Dom? As if cruelty's a virtue.

Betrayal was the greatest of all crimes, for it took all that was human within a person and made it a thing of pain. In the face of that, murder itself was surcease: it was quick, and it ended the anguish and despair of a life without hope.

I have to feel what I'm writing, right down to the core.

The idea that an author can extricate her or his own ongoing life experience from the tale being written is a conceit of very little worth.

The lesson of history is that no one learns.