I have always been intensely uncomfortable with the idea of a science fiction writer as prophet. Not that there haven't been science fiction writers who think of themselves as having some sort of prophetic role, but when I think of that, I always think of H.G. Wells - he would think of what was going to happen, and he would imagine how it would happen, and then he would create a fiction to illustrate the idea that he'd had. And no part of my process has ever resembled that at all.

Naps are essential to my process. Not dreams, but that state adjacent to sleep, the mind on waking.

All I knew about the word cyberspace when I coined it, was that it seemed like an effective buzzword. It seemed evocative and essentially meaningless. It was suggestive of something, but had no real semantic meaning, even for me, as I saw it emerge on the page.

I very seldom compose anything in my head which later finds its way into text, except character names sometimes - I'm often very much inspired by things that I misunderstand.

For years I have been mourning and not for my dead, it is for this boy for whatever corner in my heart died when his childhood slid out of my arms.

Secrets...are the very root of cool.

I don't much live my life as if I was living in a Raymond Chandler novel, which is probably a good thing.