"If you like fantasy and you want to be the next Tolkien, don’t read big Tolkienesque fantasies — Tolkien didn’t read big Tolkienesque fantasies, he read books on Finnish philology. Go and read outside of your comfort zone, go and learn stuff."
"Life is always going to be stranger than fiction, because fiction has to be convincing, and life doesn't."
"There are people who think that things that happen in fiction do not really happen. These people are wrong."
"Reading is important.Books are important.Librarians are important. (Also, libraries are not child-care facilities, but sometimes feral children raise themselves among the stacks.)"
"A book is a dream that you hold in your hands."(As quoted on BookRiot, June 18, 2013)"
"If you only write when inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you'll never be a novelist."