“People keep asking me, "Where do you get the ideas for your books?"From the worst moments in my life.I call that "literature through disaster." I got the whole Tales from Earth's End Saga that way, as well as Numenon. Don't be afraid of the hard times.”

“People ask me all the time, "Where do your ideas come from?" So, to clear up this question...I keep my ideas inside the mind of a tiny man who is tied up in my closet!”

“What shop did this book come from? she asked. Her father was looking worried at the cooker. He always got rice wrong. I don't know, Brooksie, he said, I don't remember. That was unimaginable, not remembering where a book has come from! and where it was bought from! That was part of the whole history, the whole point, of any book that you owned! And when you picked it up later in the house at home, you knew, you just knew by looking and having it in your hand, where it came from and where you got it and when and why you'd decided to buy it.”

“When you're a writer, the question people always ask you is, "Where do you get your ideas?" Writers hate this question. It's like asking Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, "Where do you get your leeches?" You don't get ideas. Ideas get you.”

“Just a line to ask you, how are you? I keep on yelling with love at you people born from the end of the Earth.”

“Do you mind if I ask you a question, darlin'?""Only if you stop calling me darlin'""Now where I come from that's a term of endearment.""Really? Well, where I come from motherfucker is a term of endearment. Want me to start calling you that?”