Quotes from Anne McCaffrey

The thing is, emotion - if it's visibly felt by the writer - will go through all the processes it takes to publish a story and still hit the reader right in the gut. But you have to really mean it.

I would recommend the short story form, which is a lot harder to write since you have to be so careful with words, until there is plenty of time to doodle through a novel

I also don't have organized religion on Pern. I figured - since there were four holy wars going on at the time of writing - that religion was one problem Pern didn't need.

I have a shelf of comfort books, which I read when the world closes in on me or something untoward happens.

I don't often reread my own books, unless I am going into another in the series and need to refresh my mood when originating the concept.

What I used to do between writing fits was feed my kids, ride my horse and go shopping for cat and dog food.

Because we build the worlds we wouldn't mind living in. They contain scary things, problems, but also a sense of rightness that makes them alive and makes us want to live there.

I have always used emotion as a writing tool. That goes back to me being on the stage.

Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical sentences.

I think writers need windows on a view to remind them that a whole world is out there, not the minutiae with which they might be dealing on a close scale.

I wouldn't encourage new writers to start off publishing through electronic media... it still isn't wide enough for the readership they would need to get a good start.

That's such a thrill - a story I wrote at the beginning of my career, and it's still packin' the house.

A good story is a good story no matter who wrote it.

I'm very fond of the Talent series, and also the Crystal Singer trio.

That's what writing is all about, after all, making others see what you have put down on the page and believing that it does, or could, exist and you want to go there.

But I will say that living in Ireland has changed the cadence and fullness of speech, since the Irish love words and use as many of them in a sentence as possible.

I have written my own screen version of Pern, but had no buyers yet.

I did not have a chance to write novels until my youngest child started school fulltime

Writing has been so much a part of my life that I'm really quite annoyed that I can't do as much as I used to.

Mostly I'm telling people that they don't have to be victims.