No,' He Said, 'memory's A Poor Thing

It's Only Through Honesty And Courage That Science Can Work At All. The Ptolemaic Understanding Of The Solar System Was Undermined And Corrected By The Constant Pressure Of More And More Honest Reporting.

It Takes Long Practice, Yes. You Have To Work. Did You Think You Could Snap Your Fingers, And Have It As A Gift? What Is Worth Having Is Worth Working For.

One Of The Ways In Which Writers Most Show Their Inventiveness Is In The Things They Tell Us About How They Write. Generally Speaking, I Don't Like To Make A Plan Before I've Written A Story. I Find It Kills The Story - Deadens It, Makes It Uninteresting. Unless I'm Surprised By Something In A Story, The Reader's Not Going To Be Surprised Either.

I Practiced On The Greatest Model Of Storytelling We've Got, Which Is "the Iliad" And "the Odyssey." I Told Those Stories Many, Many Times.

If I'm Reading Something I Happen To Know And Gets It Wrong, I Just Don't Trust The Book Any More. What I Ask Of A Novel I'm Reading Is That It Should Know A Fraction More About The Things I Know Than I Do. When I'm Writing...i Ask Myself: Would I Be Convinced By This If I Read It? If I Knocked Against This Bit Of Scenery, Would It Feel Solid?