Piers Anthony Quotes

At the time I wrote Xone I had never been on the Internet.

You don't have to settle for what you are at this moment. You can work to make a difference.
Chex

Evil people relate more to the black pole. It's - this is not exact, of course, as the science of magic is as complex as the magic of electronics - it's like traveling past a mountain. The white pole is at the apex, and it is an exhilarating height, but it takes a lot of work and few missteps to ascend it. The black pole is at the nadir, and it is easy to walk downhill; sometimes you can just sit down and slide or roll and, if you fall, you can get there very fast indeed. If you don't pay attention to where you're going, you'll tend to go down, because it is the course of least resistance. Since the average person has only the vaguest notion where he is going and tends to shut out awareness of the consequence of evil, he inevitably drifts downward. There is much more space at the base of the mountain than at the peak!

What I like least is dealing with publishers who simply don't want collaborations regardless of their merit.

Polishing: a useful lesson for the hopeful writer. You say your tormented prose doesn't read as well as mine? Neither does mine, at first!

But I've been dead much longer than I lived, and I have had the chance to educate myself in that that I lacked in life. I wasn't stupid when I lived, just ignorant. There's a lot to learn, simply by watching the follies of the living.

Hell hath little fury like that of a critic who sees a writer make it big.

Come try my strength, you dogs who thought to attack helpless prey! But when you do, O beasts of night, know that you face the Lord of Night. I am Death!

If every editor turns you down, maybe you should take a second look at your text, however, just in case.

It is the man who can't be trusted who does not trust others because he judges them by himself.

No novel is a clone of any preceding one, though with a background cast of characters and things that has grown to thousands, there are many familiar aspects.

If the fiercest conglomerate monsters had souls, with all that implied, who could condemn them as evil?

One thing you who had secure or happy childhoods should understand about those of us who did not. We who control our feelings, who avoid conflicts at all costs, or seem to seek them. Who are hypersensitive, self-critical, compulsive, workaholic, and above all survivors. We are not that way from perversity, and we cannot just relax and let it go. We've learned to cope in ways you never had to.

People talk
they sneer at escapism. Well, there are those of us who need it.

The man glanced up. "Hello. Tweeter tells me you're Kody, a fellow Mundanian, newly arrived, and you want to compare notes." "Uh, yes, in essence," Kody agreed, taken aback. All that from one tweet? Well, maybe it did fit within 140 characters.

Why did things have to be so complicated with human beings? ... Yet if we were not what we were, creatures with at least the awareness of purpose and honor, what would we be? Empty knights in armor, seeming so strong on the outside, yet hollow inside?

I wish my readers took less of my time - about a third of my working time goes to them - but I love and need them all.

But one must go where one's road leads, even when it's a distressing road.

The biggest fool is the one who thinks he knows it all.

One day you'll discover that the opinions of worthless people are worthless.

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

All because he had tried to rescue a beautiful, vacuous girl from a dragon. In folklore, such a hero always received a most intriguing reward. In reality, the hero was as likely as not to find himself in need of rescue…

Brevity did not mean inconsequence...

God created the earth but the Devil evolved it.

The library is a place of mental diversion, learning, and comfort for anyone who has an intellect. I know of no librarian who when asked for food for the mind will offer a stone. What more could anyone ask?

It would be easier to write a novel without reader input, but I feel the fiction is richer for it.

I turned my home state of Florida into the Land of Xanth.

But I don't read or listen for pleasure. I have too much else to do.

Happy children do not seem to grow up to be writers.

Latia returned, coming around the curve and stepping through the glass. "Yes, it's our path," she reported. "And it seems to be near the ogre fen."
"Oh? How do you know?" Esk asked.
"Oh, nothing specific. Trees twisted into pretzels, boulders cracked with hairy fist marks on them, dragons slinking about as if terrified of anything on two legs. Perhaps I am mistaken.

When you steal from the library, you are preventing anyone else from reading that book, and the very notion makes me want to drop you in the Void.

In fact, I believe that we need better sex education in our own culture, here in America, so that young folk learn about things like venereal disease before they encounter it.

I have always admired the work of Phil Farmer and was glad for the chance to work with him. Readers today may be too young to remember his classics like The Lovers.

Here's a secret: fictive text doesn't necessarily flow easily. Most of the time it's more like cutting a highway through a mountain. You just have to keep working with your pick, chipping away at the rock, making slow progress.

Now it was done. He was free of Xanth forever. Free to make his own life, without being ridiculed or mothered or tempted. Free to be himself.
Bink put his face in his hands and cried.

A mortal person's mind is like a wilderness, with a tremendous volume of decaying constructs and half-understood experience forming natural harbors for wild animal effects.

How many people similarly spent their lives searching for their own spells - some gratuitous benefit such as a silver tree or political power or undeserved acclaim - when all they really needed was to be satisfied with what they already had? Sometimes what they had was better than what they thought they wanted.

As for collaboration - I have done a lot, 26 books, and found publishers increasingly resistive to them. It's not that the books are bad; editors won't even read them.

Never thought I'd see the day when Death was denied. That leaves taxes as the only certainty.

Adults had the notion that juveniles needed to suffer. Only when they had suffered enough to wipe out most of their naturally joyous spirits and innocence were they staid enough to be considered mature. An adult was essentially a broken-down child.

Being terrified but going ahead and doing what must be done - that's courage. The one who feels no fear is a fool, and the one who lets fear rule him is a coward.

What splendor nature proffered to the eye of any man who had half the wit to appreciate it!

Normally I work out a general summary of what I mean to do, then start writing, and the details can be different from my anticipation. So there is considerable flow, but always within channels.

The sweetest temptation could be that which was known to be the most foolish.

When I started writing this, I found that I simply couldn't take fantasy seriously, so it became humorous, and continued from there.

I think that man was half-right. He is better off out of the game - but the game may not be better off without him. A man should not exist for himself alone. Life made an investment in him, and that investment was not paid off.

Do you seek to bribe Death? Zane asked, half angry and two-thirds curious.

I never do a full outline, and if I did, I would not feel bound to it, because the view from inside a scene can be different from the view outside it. But neither do I just start writing and see what happens; I am far more disciplined than that.

Now you must excuse your Raja for he must suffer to give audience to the prince of Punt, a pompous old fool, who believes that his frequent flatulencies are the echoes of the Gods applauding his non sequiturs.

When you have something you would die to protect it ceases to be a matter of courage." Niobe explained, "You just know what you have to do and you can't afford fear.

At this slower pace the journey took a couple of days, and I fought off a few minor threats along the way
griffins, carnivorous plants, giant serpents, hostile centaurs, that sort of thing, purely routine
and I was beginning to get bored when at last the dusky towers of Castle Roogna hove into view.

Keep writing, because not only does practice improve skill, it gives you more chances to score on the market. I did that for eight years before making my first sale.

Evil can never touch the person who refuses to accept it.

Obviously it could be, because it was.

For an instant Stile was daunted by the improbability of it all: a man, a cyborg, a robot, an animalhead, and a wooden golem, all riding unicorns through a battlefield strewn with goblins and dragons, pursuing an invaluable ball of power-rock that rolled along a channel cleared by plastic explosive. What a mishmash!

Referring to Jumper the spider, who needs to hide himself in human form, and he's learning to act like a human.
"I'm sure I can learn to walk faster than that," he said desperately.
"But you'll also need to learn the nuances of human behavior. Such as not going around naked."
"What's wrong with being natural?" he demanded.
"Humans aren't natural. They are girt about by all manner of conventions. It will take time for you to catch up with them all.

Not any more. Not according to Glory Goblin or Brontes the Cyclops. Imbri merely confirms that Hugo has perfected his talent, and is now a good deal smarter and handsomer than before. A woman has to be responsible.

Be what you are; it is better that way.
--Dolph

What is life, except an ongoing instinct for survival? Nature uses that instinct to make us perform; otherwise we would all relax, and the species would disappear. Nature is a cruel green mother. The survival instinct is a goad, not a privilege.

Robert Jordan ... is a lot of writer

Writers pay a lot of attention to wordage, because some publishers seem to care more about length than about quality and will automatically reject novels that don't fit their narrow standards of length - or will chop out extra wordage to make a novel fit.

At present I answer about 100 letters a month, and read 300 emails.

Terry Pratchett's right up my alley ... give him a try!

What kind of fool had he been, to throw away romance untried?

Your teacher didn't lie to you. A centaur never lies. He merely edited his information, on orders from the King, so as not to force on the impressionable minds of children things their parents did not want them to hear. Education has ever been thus.

I hope to read a Harry Potter novel soon, to see what it's all about. I admit to being annoyed that many good light fantasy writers have had trouble getting published, in England and elsewhere, when it is obvious the readers were waiting for us all along.