You see, should I stand in front of a landscape and paint it, I'm completely ignoring the factor of time. While I am painting it, it's changing, clouds are changing, all sorts of things. So there's the myth there of someone creating in a timeless vacuum.

In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that’s just ridiculous. It’s as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it’s for a reason.

The first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol himself, train himself as to what is going on and win back as much independent ground for himself as possible

In this world, [of Flash and Filigree] nothing is true, and censure or outrage is simply irrelevant.

Many of my characters first came through to me as voices. That's why I use a tape recorder.

If you talk you always end up with politics, it gets nowhere. I mean man it's strictly from the soft typewriter.

I think all writers write for an audience. There is no such thing as writing for yourself.