If you want to know all about the sea ... and ask the sea itself, what does it say? Grumble grumble swish swish. It is too busy being itself to know anything about itself.

Truth is a matter of the imagination.

Part of the particular interest and beauty of science fiction and fantasy: writer and reader collaborate in world-making.

I never knew anybody . . . who found life simple. I think a life or a time looks simple when you leave out the details.

Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it's not poison.

Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud's terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things. Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe.

Besides, when you say you're a feminist it annoys the bigots and the old farts and the prissy ladies so much, it's kind of irresistible.