Novelist

There may not be one Truth - there may be several truths - but saying that is not to say that reality doesn't exist.

I'm not interested in cutting the feet off my characters or stretching them to make them fit my certain political view.

My brother and I were both good at science, and we were both good at English literature. Either one of us could have gone either way.

War is what happens when language fails.

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason.

When things are really dismal, you can laugh, or you can cave in completely.

A word after a word after a word is power.

I know that some books and some writers, you can pretty much draw a square around it and say, 'Nobody under 40,' or 'Nobody under 25.' With my books, it always has been, and continues to be, spread right across the board, and I think the operative term is 'reader.'

Social media is called social media for a reason. It lends itself to sharing rather than horn-tooting.

All fiction is about people, unless it's about rabbits pretending to be people. It's all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that's what we call 'the plot'.

I grew up with the biologists. I know how they think.

Speculative fiction encompasses that which we could actually do. Sci-fi is that which we're probably not going to see.

I particularly like Twitter, because it's short and can be very funny and informative. It's a little bit like having your own radio program.

There is good and mediocre writing within every genre.

We shouldn't be saying 'Save the planet'; we should be saying: 'Save viable conditions in which people can live.' That's what we're dealing with here.

If social stability goes pear-shaped, you have a choice between anarchy and dictatorship. Most people will opt for more security, even if they have to give up some personal freedom.

Communications technology changes possibilities for communication, but that doesn't mean it changes the inherited structure of the brain. So you may think that you're addicted to online reading, but as soon as it isn't available anymore, your brain will pretty immediately adjust to other forms of reading. It's a habit like all habits.

Like many modern poets, I tend to conceal rhymes by placing them in the middle of lines, and to avoid immediate alliteration and assonance in favor of echoes placed later in the poems.

Some bioengineering is good, especially if it results in plants that are more drought-resistant or perennial food crops.

I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature, and I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a novel isn't simply a vehicle for private expression, but that it also exists for social examination. I firmly believe this.