You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.
I was a very keen reader of science fiction.
Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.
Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
When you read, I'm sure you don't realize that your eyes are going backwards and forwards and to this place and that place. Mine don't do that.
I have, before now, waited for a pen to perform a macro.
Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent.
You can't remember the plot of the Dr Who movie because it didn't have one, just a lot of plot holes strung together. It did have a lot of flashing lights, though.
I think the best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I've got Alzheimer's.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
My experience in Amsterdam is that cyclists ride where the hell they like and aim in a state of rage at all pedestrians while ringing their bell loudly, the concept of avoiding people being foreign to them.
I was once a journalist. And I think of myself as a journalist, and that's it. You tell the truth. I even wrote a book called 'The Truth'.
For an author, the nice characters aren't much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They're doing it for themselves.
This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.
I don't really plan. I'm almost intuitive about things.
The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.
If it wasn't for the fun and money, I really don't know why I'd bother.
Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
The bravest person I've ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for a very rare, complex and unpleasant disease. I last saw him at a Discworld convention, where he chose to take part in a game as an assassin. He died not long afterwards, and I wish I had his fortitude and sense of style.
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
That's the most terrible thing about being an author - standing there at your mother's funeral, but you don't switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill. Who was it said - one of the famous lady novelists - 'unhappy is the family that contains an author'?
'Nation' was one that I'd have killed myself if I hadn't written it. It was absolutely important to me that I wrote it. It was good for my soul.
I've often felt depressed; everyone feels depressed.
Fantasy is uni-age. You can start it in the creche, and it follows you to death.
You have to have really wide reading habits and pay attention to the news and just everything that's going on in the world: you need to. If you get this right, then the writing is a piece of cake.
One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they're just infested with lots of stuff.
I have to write because if I don't get something down then after a while I feel it's going to bang the side of my head off.
Personally, I think the best motto for an educational establishment is: 'Or Would You Rather Be a Mule?'
I've got wide tastes, but I don't like jazz.
In all seriousness, people think that it's the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words - that's how long a novel is.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm a writer who's writing books, and therefore, I don't want to die. You'd miss the end of the book wouldn't you? You can't die with an unfinished book.
The 'New Testament', now, I quite liked. Jesus had a lot of good things to say, and as for his father, he must have been highly thought of by the community to work with wood - a material that couldn't have been widely available in Palestine.