I didn’t set out to discover a truth. I was actually sent to the Outer Fringes to conduct a chair census and learn some humility. But the truth inevitably found me, as important truths often...

Humans like stories. Humans need stories. Stories are good. Stories work. Story clarifies and captures the essence of the human spirit. Story, in all its forms—of life, of love, of knowledge—has traced the upward surge...

The only way to write is to write. Writers write. And when they’ve written, they write some more.

Books” – Snell smiled – “are a kind of magic.

You’re talking about gold and silver, cash and securities. I’m talking about the sheer beauty of the land, the value of unpolluted parkland made wild and staying wild forever.

She had large, questioning eyes that seemed to draw me in and a sense of quiet outrage that simmered just beneath the surface. More than anything, within her features, there was a streak of wild...

…Tell me, has anything odd happened to you recently?What do you mean, odd?’Unusual. Deviating from the customary. Something outside the usual parameters of normalcy. An occurrence of unprecedented weird.

Männliches Schuldverweigerungs-Syndrom”, erklärte mein Vater. “Von 2054 an ist das eine medizinisch anerkannte Krankheit.

Don’t ever call me mad, Mycroft. I’m not mad. I’m just … well, differently moraled, that’s all.

They had just digested a recent meal of prepositions and were happily farting out apostrophes and ampersands; the air was heav’y with th’em&.

The cucumber and the tomato are both fruit; the avocado is a nut. To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable.

Have you ever wondered how nostalgia isn”t what it used to be?

Bowden Cable is the sort of honest and dependable operative that is the backbone of SpecOps. They never win commendations or medalsand the public has no knowledge of them at all. They are all worth...

Now and again. Good residency is about having the power to ask someone to do something, but not necessarily exercising it.

Comedy was one of those genres that while appearing quite jolly was actually highly dangerous.

I don’t need you to agree with me,” she said quietly.” I’ll go away happy with a little bit of doubt. Doubt is good. It’s an emotion we can build on. Perhaps if we feed...

Fiction wouldn’t be much fun without its fair share of scoundrels, and they have to live somewhere.

Chromatacia…society…ruled by a colortocracy…social hierarchy based upon one’s limited color perception, society is dominated by color. In this world, you are what you can see.

The Special Operations Network was instigated to handle policing duties considered either too unusual or too specialized to be tackled by the regular force. There were thirty departments in all, starting at the more mundane...

She wasn’t the only one to be physically morphed by reader expectation. Miss Havisham was now elderly whether she liked it or not, and Sherlock Holmes wore a deerstalker and smoked a ridiculously large pipe....

If it weren’t for greed, intolerance, hate, passion and murder, you would have no works of art, no great buildings, no medical science, no Mozart, no Van Gough, no Muppets and no Louis Armstrong.

magic swirls about us like an invisible fog of energy that can be tapped by those gifted enough, using a variety of techniques that center on layered spelling, mumbled incantations, and a burst of concentrated...

Individual words, sounds, squiggles on paper with no meanings other than those with which our imagination can clothe them.

I was in ’78 recently,” he announced. “I brought you this.”He handed me a single by the Beatles. I didn’t recognize the title.”Didn’t they split in ’70?””Not always. How are things?

For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.

You’re just a huge romantic at heart, aren’t you?””If there’s cash involved, I’m anything you want me to be.

I think Wordsworth was as surprised to see me as I was him. It can’t be usual to go to your favorite memory only to find someone already there, admiring the view ahead of you.

If a shred of integrity fell into your soul, it would die a very lonely death.

but the Outlanders are fooling themselves. The BookWorld is as orderly as people in the RealWorld *hope* their own world to be—it isn’t a mirror, it’s an aspiration.

Before, I suspected I might not amount to anything, and now I now I won’t, so at least it takes away the wearisome burden of delusive hope

No one would argue that we owe a debt of gratitude to the Goliath Corporation. They helped us to rebuild after the Second War and it should not be forgotten. Of late, however, it seems...

Those that see too much quickly find themselves seeing nothing at all.

Dead. Never been that before. Not even once.

PDR: Persons of Dubious Reality; refugees from the collective consciousness. Uninvited visitors who have fallen through the grating that divides the real, from the written. They arrive with their actions hardwired due to their repetitious...

Sometimes, a word succeeds beyond the wildest dreams of its creators, like a virus sent into the world to infect common speech.

Honor is kind of what you get when you weaponize manners …

the Real-World was a sprawling mess of a book in need of a good editor.

The best reason for committing loathsome and detestable acts–and let’s face it, I am considered something of an expert in this field–is purely for their own sake. Monetary gain is all very well, but it...

Funding for the Special Operations Network comes directly from the government. Most work is centralized, but all of the SpecOps divisions have local representatives to keep a watchful eye on any provincial problems. They are...

Sometimes I wonder if the human race isn’t collectively as mad as a sack of door knobs.

After all, reading is arguably a far more creative and imaginative process than writing; when the reader creates emotion in their head, or the colors of the sky during the setting sun, or the smell...

Soothsayers are like that. They see many futures but never their own.

All of everything came into existence simply because it wanted to be. The big bang wasn’t so much a big bang as a hasty dash toward an opportunity to trade nothingness for somethingness. The main...

Curiosity is a descending stair…that leads to only who-knows-where.

Her majesty is one verb short of a sentence.

You like economics, don’t you?’ I asked. ‘Everyone should know the basics,’ said the Princess. ‘Lasting peace will only be brought about through economic means – we should be trading with the Trolls rather than...

That’s the thing about destiny: It can’t be predicted, and it’s usually pretty odd.

Love is a wonderful thing, my dear, but it leaves you wide open for blackmail.

Okay, this is the wisdom. First, time spent on reconnaissanse is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon. And finally, there is no problem on Earth that can’t be...

There is no point in expending good money on the pursuit of an engine that can power aircraft without propellers. What is wrong with airships anyway? They have borne mankind aloft for over a hundred...