“A man does not see where he treads in battle, for he is watching the enemy.”

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the first book had not sold… doesn’t bear thinking about, but I suppose we’d have made it work somehow.

We don’t build,’ I said to my son, ‘we just destroy.

You won’t regret the men you never killed, but you will regret the women you passed up.

What I mean by that is that the point of life, as I see it, is not to write books or scale mountains or sail oceans, but to achieve happiness, and preferably an unselfish happiness.

So far it’s 43 books in 25 years.

Wyrd bith ful araed (Fate is inexorable).

Research is a lifelong occupation so it’s hard to factor it in, but I reckon most books take 5 months from start to finish.

I’ll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.

Of course some days are easier than others, but my worst day is better than being in most humdrum occupations.

Love is a dangerous thing. It comes in disguise to change our life… Lust is the deceiver. Lust wrenches our lives until nothing matters except the one we think we love, and under that deceptive spell we kill for them, give all for them, and then, when we have what we have wanted.

Looking back, of course, it was irresponsible, mad, forlorn, idiotic, but if you don’t take chances then you’ll never have a winning hand, and I’ve no regrets.

Then you start another book and suddenly the galley proofs of the last one come in and you have to wrench your attention away from what you’re writing and try to remember what you were thinking when you wrote the previous one.

We make children and wealth and amass land and build halls and assemble armies and give great feasts, but only one thing survives us. Reputation.

Only a fool wants war, but once a war starts then it cannot be fought half-heartedly. It cannot even be fought with regret, but must be waged with a savage joy in defeating the enemy, and it is that savage joy that inspires our bards to write their greatest songs about love and war.

Life is a jest of the Gods and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh… or else you’ll weep yourself to death.

Even the nailed god cannot change that truth. And I was a warrior, and in a world at war the warrior must be cruel.

I was obsessed with those films in my teens. I remember watching ‘Badlands’ and being amazed that there were these scenes in which nobody said anything and the silence told the whole story.

We didn’t have money for a babysitter, so she always brought me with her to the dancing school. Back then, I was already watching and listening to Michael Jackson for a long time.

The problem is when you become so well known that everyone is watching you and you don’t have an opportunity to observe.

Watching the changing colors [and then] retire to the forest without picking a pawpaw for supper.

I never thought I would type that I learned how to emote in poems from watching Star Trek but there it is.

If you’re still watching, write in and we’ll send you a fiver each.

What people end up watching is what the advertising end up glomming onto and promoting.

I was watching Monster’s Ball, which is a fabulous movie. It’s just a little gem: beautifully shot, and shot in a way I never would have done.