When state and religion are one, religion becomes a means for the powerful to remain in power.

The big battle at the end of DW isn't drawn from history, but it's influenced by history, certainly.

I've learned that I get blocked when my subconscious mind is telling me that I've taken the work in a wrong direction, and that once I start listening to what my subconscious is trying to tell me, I can work out the problem and get moving again.

For every SF reader of that period, Robert A. Heinlein was also a touchstone.

How long it takes to write a book depends on its length.

It's a tough job to tell a story when the audience already knows the ending, and the ending is bleak.

I was pretty much grown-up by the time I attended school in Britain - or as grown-up as I'll ever get.

Being a writer was never a choice, it was an irresistible compulsion.

The Internet offers an interesting combination of advertising and community by participating in the community you can become an advertisement for yourself.

Working within the limitations of the shared world generally made the writing easier, because I didn't have to invent any of the characters or background, which is usually the hardest part.

When state and religion are one, religion becomes a means for the powerful to remain in power.

It's hard to generalize, because they're all different. When I started, I decided to take as much advantage as I could of the freedom offered by the SF field.

The mass-market paperback, for one, is too expensive.

I went to college, though I didn't take many writing courses.

I've experienced writer's block, but never for more than a few days.

I found college useful for a lot of other reasons. It exposed me to a great many influences I wouldn't otherwise have encountered, and gave me a lot of time with some very intelligent people whose thoughts are still with me.

Everything that you read is an influence on everything you write, and you want to draw as many elements into your work as you can.

Now I have to motivate myself much more than I had previously.

That's why editors and publishers will never be obsolete: a reader wants someone with taste and authority to point them in the direction of the good stuff, and to keep the awful stuff away from their door.

I wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember.

Even if you only want to write science fiction, you should also read mysteries, poetry, mainstream literature, history, biography, philosophy, and science.

If you can find collaborators whose strengths compliment your own, the result can be more than the sum of its authors.

I'm not afraid of werewolves or vampires or haunted hotels, I'm afraid of what real human beings to do other real human beings.

Try to meet as many authors, agents, and editors as you can.

An SF author who reads only SF will have little new to contribute, but someone with a broader experience will bring more to the table.

I want a platform that, like a book or a magazine, I can carry into the bath or leave at the beach.

I now have to find a reason to write, every single day.

I'm in favor of any technology that makes my work available to the reading public at a reasonable price.

The Rift, which was well over a thousand pages of manuscript, took two years.

I can't speak for the other authors, but what I hoped to achieve was to illuminate certain corners of the Lucas universe that hadn't yet been explored.

Genre labels are useful only insofar as they help you find an audience.

Science fiction readers probably have the gene for novelty, and seem to enjoy a cascade of invention as much as a writer enjoys providing one.

Some of my ideas were shot down by Lucasfilm because they stepped on territory that has been reserved for the movies. I didn't have a problem with that.

The essential elements of giving are power and love - activity and affection - and the consciousness of the race testifies that in the high and appropriate exercise of these is a blessedness greater than any other.

I want the municipality to be a helping hand to the man with a desire of sympathy, to help the fallen when it is not in their power to help themselves.

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

The oil companies regard nuclear power as their rival, who will reduce their profits, so they put out a lot of disinformation about nuclear power.

The franchise itself gives no real power, unless accompanied by the right on the part of all the possessors of it to elect something like an equal number of representatives.

Saddam Hussein has been tenacious in his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and, unless he is removed from power, he will eventually harm our nation and our allies. Every moment we delay allows him to grow stronger.

Power without abuse loses its charm.

One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

To enable men to exercise that power is the object of protection.

One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train.

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.

During that space walk there will be some repositioning of the power so that the arm can be fully controlled by the robotic station that is in the Lab.

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

Given the daunting challenges that we face, it's important that president elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one.

Every one, more or less, loves Power, yet those who most wish for it are seldom the fittest to be trusted with it.