I started writing books because I couldn't find the books I wanted to read on the shelf.

Novel writing, like so many things in life, is an iterative process. You come at it again and again, working at it like you would a piece of pottery or a stone sculpture, chipping away the parts that don't make sense, smoothing over the rough edges.

Your enemies love your failures, sure. But what they love even more is to see you brought so low by those failures that you never get up again. Sometimes enemies aren't even external. Often, our biggest critic, our greatest enemy, is ourselves.

Creating a future requires a profound and yes, unrealistic, vision of what is possible. But it is fantasy and wonder that drive technology and innovation.

I understand that space travel and expansion is just as much about altering ourselves, our attitudes, our social structures, our very biology, as it is about altering the places we choose to live.

I want to write books that keep people up at night, where they cry through the first forty pages and keep reading anyway.

As an introverted kid who lived in the middle of nowhere, my stories made up the whole of my social life. That meant that while other kids cultivated hobbies like skateboarding or playing the piano, I sat at home scribbling in notebooks.

I know a lot of writers who tell me they 'always' knew how to read. They can't remember a time before reading. And those writers make me want to tear my hair out.

I'm a naturally lazy person, and I live for a challenge.

The reality is that much of the stuff you see in film, television, comics, and children's cartoons got its start inside the inspired, disruptive halls of science-fiction and fantasy literature.

I've always been interested in the politics of war. War is one of those things that, the longer I studied it, the more illogical it seemed.

I can't change the preconceived notions a reader brings to a work, but I can do my best to be aware of, address, and subvert tropes and expectations that readers may have as best I can and hope I don't screw it up too much.

I think anger of any kind is valuable. It's all about learning how to channel it. The worst thing we can do is get bored or complacent or worse - suppress our anger and then see it burst forth in unhealthy ways.

Short fiction isn't my natural form. It's taken a lot of work over the years to finally feel more comfortable writing stories under 80,000 words!

As for the best '80s action movie, I'm going to be predictable here and say 'Die Hard.' I watch that movie at least twice a year. Perfect script.

It's easier to say people are crazy than to try to figure out why.

I've told people before that I don't want to be a part of a genre; I want to be my own genre. I want to create it.

I'm terribly particular about what I read: lush writing, secondary world or seriously far-out science fiction, strong worldbuilding, dynamic characters. I need to have it all for it to work for me.

One of the things I stress to those I meet, especially young people, is that we are the heroes of our own lives, and we can be the masters of our own stories.

Storytelling is a universal: every culture does it. There's a reason our religious books aren't simply a list of shall-and-shall-nots. Morals and teachings are contained in stories, which are studied, dissected, and passed down; we remember stories in a way we don't remember lists of facts.

Science fiction writers create all sorts of futures - that comes with the job. But it's not the type that matters - hopeful or dark - it's the variety we see as readers. It's nurturing the imaginations of those who will go on to create the world around us.

As both an essayist and science fiction and fantasy novelist, I write about and for the future. I talk about the past to remind us that what we believe has always been true - that men and women are somehow static categories, or that men in power has always been the default, or that same-sex love affairs were always taboo - has not always been thus.

When we see sexist and racist behavior, the only way to change that is also to point it out and make it clear that it's not okay.

There is no greater threat to progress than the phrase, 'That's impossible.'

Human beings thrive on imagination and pushing boundaries and limitations. Imposing limits when we don't actually have any true idea of what's possible is like imposing a steel trap over the mind.

If your entire conception of what's possible in fantasy only comes from other fantasy books, you're going to go on to create a copy of a copy of a copy. There's nothing original there, nothing dynamic. Which is fine if that's your goal, but I've always wanted to do something no one else was doing before.

I don't like to write about things that bore me, and that means I steer far clear of writing books that are just like what's on the shelves.

Authors are often sent a number of books to read for possible review and advance praise. It can be easy for new books to get lost in the pile.

Once readers and industry professionals have you pegged down as writing a particular type of book, they are less likely to try something new from you if they decided they didn't like the first one.

Pen names have always fascinated me, in part because I understand the professional and economic and even societal reasons to do so.

I tried to be really nice and like the things other people liked and do the things other people were supposed to do, and what you find out is that they're going to bully you anyway. And I thought, 'You know what? If I'm going to get bullied anyway, I might as well get bullied for making a difference in the world.'