A great ancient poet was blind. A great classical composer was deaf. Many of us are dumb. What have we to show for it?

We often engage the defense mechanism of tunnel vision, just to keep ourselves focused on our daily lives. This makes us terribly jaded in our perception of what is really around us.

I think I became [writer] despite myself - tricking myself into it, really.

A tornado of thought is unleashed after each new insight. This in turn results in an earthquake of assumptions. These are natural disasters that re-shape the spirit.

What we need in fantasy is the sudden balm of clarity - a temporary reprieve from life's white noise and clamor of pain, a kind of time-out. Such clarity, a new perspective, is made possible by fantastic metaphor.

I've just been bitten on the neck by a vampire... mosquito. Does that mean that when the night comes I will rise and be annoying?

In some of my works I take away other elements of the world - normalcy, sex drive, sense of time, memory, a loved one. Without some of these basics, characters have no choice but to do something to reclaim their lives.