Dan Simmons

"It's odd how violence and humor so often go together, isn't it?"

"Writing, I'm convinced, should be a subversive activity - frowned on by the authorities - and not one cooed over and praised beyond common sense by some teacher."

"I loved almost everything about being a teacher, but I was an unusual teacher."

"There's a unique bond of trust between readers and authors that I don't believe exists in any other art form as a reader, I trust a novelist to give me his or her best effort, however flawed."