Quotes from Terri Windling

I'm working on a very long series of paintings based on desert folklore.

Robert Jordan, whether he's writing with passion or not, I don't know.

Happiness is a talent like any other. It's another art form. Some people are good at it, some people aren't.

There's that old adage about how there's only seven plots in the world and Shakespeare's done them all before.

There are plenty of bad editors who try to impose their own vision on a book. (…)A good novel editor is invisible.

One of the best things about folklore and fairy tales is that the best fantasy is what you find right around the corner, in this world. That's where the old stuff came from.

There have been a number of us working very, very hard to bring myth and fairy tales into public consciousness, through fantasy literature and other media. I hope we're succeeding in some small way.

I have a great respect for the academics who are working with the source material. My hat's off to them.

My book collection is primarily in America, since that's where I've lived most of my life.

I'm also looking for gems that the average reader might have missed.

Read the folklore masters. Go to galleries. Walk in the woods. That's what you need to be an artist or storyteller.

I divide my time between homes in Arizona and England, six months a year in each place.

I'd like to encourage people to please keep reading-and most importantly, to please keep trying new writers. The only way we can bring fresh new material into the field is if people go out and buy it.

But for me, really, the written word is always stronger than film.

I wanted to be a scientist. But I had no math skills.

I'd had no particular interest in the Southwest at all as a young girl, and I was completely surprised that the desert stole my heart to the extent it did.

I like Celtic folk music, Native American music, and any kind of early music. There isn't a lot of music that I don't like... except for Show Tunes.

In more recent years, I've become more and more fascinated with the indigenous folklore of this land, Native American folklore, and also Hispanic folklore now that I live in the Southwest.

Magic Realism is not new. The label's new, the specific Latin American form of it is new, its modern popularity is new, but it's been around as long as literature has been around.

Since fantasy isn't about technology, the accelleration has no impact at all. But it's changed the lives of fantasy writers and editors. I get to live in England and work for a New York publisher!

I have a great respect for the academics who are working with the source material. My hat's off to them.

When I started in the business, there was a thing called adult fantasy, but nobody quite knew what it was, and most publishers didn't have an adult fantasy list. They had science fiction lists, which they stuck a little bit of fantasy into.

Trickster foxes appear in old stories gathered from countries and cultures all over the world -- including Aesop's Fables from ancient Greece, the "Reynard" stories of medieval Europe, the "Giovannuzza" tales of Italy, the "Brer Fox" lore of the American South, and stories from diverse Native American traditions.

Our lives are our mythic journeys, and our happy endings are still to be won.