“The impulse to explain is the Achilles’ heel of all genre work, and the most sophisticated artists within every genre know better than to expose their worlds to the sharp knife of intellection.”

“The world, finally, is no longer large, and to ignore it likely requires more effort than to simply take notice.”

“[M]y first published book had just appeared in stores. The last year of my life--the year of finishing it, editing it, and seeing it through its various page-proof passes--ranks among the most unnerving of my young life. It has not felt good, or freeing. It has felt nerve-shreddingly disquieting. Publication simply allows one that much more to worry about. This cannot be said to aspiring writers often or sternly enough. Whatever they carry within themselves they believe publication cures will not, I can all but guarantee, be cured. You just wind up with new diseases.”

“Most non-readers are nothing but an agglomeration of third-hand opinion and blindly received wisdom. ”

“Reading gives one something to think about other than one's self.”

“I have had moderately meaningful relationships in which I invested less time than what I have spent on some BioWare games.”

“Hocking was slender in the way that writers and musicians are sometimes slender: not out of any desire or design but rather because his days were spent being consumed rather than consuming.”