Money is like fire. It is only good when there's just the right amount of it, when it's properly contained and under your control.

I must admit that I do have a particular soft spot for the character of the chameleon-trickster goddess Ris in Dreams of the Compass Rose. Ris has gone through the whole spectrum of personal change and has had the longest road of all. And in the end she chooses to come back to the world, to guide, and to help, and to open the eyes of those who are suffering. In that is her true strength and humorous wisdom. I really do like her a whole lot.

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

When reviewing my novel Dreams of the Compass Rose for the Magazine of F&SF, master fantasist Charles de Lint called it "engaging and resonant, creating a new mythology that feels so right one might be forgiven for thinking that it's the cultural heritage of some forgotten country or people that have been lost to history." This of course I take as the highest compliment, since it was indeed my sincere intent.

I technically live in the desert - Los Angeles being an artificial oasis - but my interest stems even farther to my own ethnic roots and to my love of antiquity, of the Old World and of the east.

Desire is like fog on a bathroom mirror -- its presence incites you to wipe the mirror, and see yourself clearly again.

Fantasy is not the literature of subversion of the status quo but of 'awakening to' the status quo.