Quotes from John M. Ford

People tell me they laughed hard enough to wake their spouses, that they've given away numerous copies to friends, and that it's the one Trek book they'll give to people they wouldn't expect to like others.

We're not lost. We're locationally challenged.

If I were to write Web now, it would be a much, much darker book.

There are people who believe in an absolutely transparent prose; with every respect for clarity of expression, I don't.

The language fictional characters use is chosen for effect, at least if the author is concentrating.

Creating the fictional background for a game world isn't significantly different from creating a background for fiction.

We're all living on borrowed time. The trick is to come up with works of sufficient interest to pay off the debt.

We're not lost. We're locationally challenged.

We're not lost. We're locationally challenged.

Every book is three books, after all; the one the writer intended, the one the reader expected, and the one that casts its shadow when the first two meet by moonlight.

I long for the simplicity of theatre. I want lessons learned, comeuppances delivered, people sorted out, all before your bladder gets distractingly full. That's what I want. What I know is what we all know, whether we'll admit it or not: every attempt to impose the roundness of a well-made play on reality produces a disaster. Life just isn't so, nor will it be made so.

Askade took the battertoast, looked at it blearily. "I can't rewire it into a death ray without some extra parts," he said, and took a bite. "Hm. Tastes okay. What's the problem?

Someday we will be only spirit, and all one; but here on earth we're made of earth, and sometimes flesh must touch.

We can misspend time - hurting people, ourselves included, making the world worse - but to 'waste' time - to get no motion at all, good or bad - to do that one would have to not be alive at all.

There was not enough pain in Akhil's body to pay for all of this.

Kaden pointed upstairs. "I am not tired either. Let us converse as well. I know many glorious lies of battle.

They don't have any real power, though," Sanchez said. "They're not tyrants." "Are you trying to tell me that somebody who names you 'Princess Deedee the First' isn't a tyrant?

And you must be the ambassador." "Charlotte Sanchez, UFP Diplomatic Service. Pleased." "Why?" Flyter said innocently. Without missing a beat, Sanchez said "Because meeting new individuals gives me great intellectual pleasure. That's why I became a diplomat." "Oh, good! There are almost fourteen thousand of us, you know. We should be able to make you really, really happy.

Magic is a building of many small efforts towards a final, greater end," Hywel said. "Magic is slow.

Was it worth it, Peredur?" Richard said. "So I am now undisputed King. Do I have a son, or brothers? Is the land renewed? Shall I decree happiness, on pain of death?

I don't think anyone wants a reader to be completely lost - certainly not to the point of giving up - but there's something to be said for a book that isn't instantly disposable, that rewards a second reading.

Naturally, the reader has access only to the events I show and the way I show them, but as has been said, there's generally a good deal of ambiguity in that presentation.

The ideal, it seems to me, is to show things happening and allow the reader to decide what they mean.

There are readers who want every point to be clearly and unambiguously set forth, and there are those who want to pry ideas and meanings out for themselves.