Best 12 quotes of John M. Ford on MyQuotes

At one point I intended to write precursor and sequel novels, about the establishment of the Web and its next evolution, but I am very unlikely to now; they would take place in a different universe.

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

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 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.

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.

I'm very happy that the New York Times has spoken well of my stuff; who wouldn't be? But it's not a choice I made.

Sometimes the reader will decide something else than the author's intent; this is certainly true of attempts to empirically decipher reality.

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

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

Well, it's an adventure story, and a Bildungsroman, of course, but there was also the intention to describe a culture that had been seen in rather narrow terms.

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

Then the syncretist Ficino, sitting hunched with Lorenzo standing at his side, put all the ideas together, along with Lorenzo's new song: chariots blazing between the worlds as gods fought rebel gods, the destruction of a city -- a planet? -- by fire, beasts beyond imagining both to terrify and befriend the heroes. "It needs a title," Signorina Scala said. Pulci had his mouth open, but Ficino beat him to the pun. "It shall be dedicated to Isis and Mars," he said, "and we will call it Stella Martis.