Walter J. Williams Quotes

"Genre labels are useful only insofar as they help you find an audience."

"Being a writer was never a choice, it was an irresistible compulsion."

"If you can find collaborators whose strengths compliment your own, the result can be more than the sum of its authors."

"I don't know why they were so intent on drawing autobiographical work from students who were so young they really didn't have an autobiography."

"I found college useful for a lot of other reasons. It exposed me to a great many influences I wouldn't otherwise have encountered, and gave me a lot of time with some very intelligent people whose thoughts are still with me."

"I've learned that I get blocked when my subconscious mind is telling me that I've taken the work in a wrong direction, and that once I start listening to what my subconscious is trying to tell me, I can work out the problem and get moving again."

"The Internet offers an interesting combination of advertising and community by participating in the community you can become an advertisement for yourself."

"The Rift, which was well over a thousand pages of manuscript, took two years."

"I now have to find a reason to write, every single day."

"I was pretty much grown-up by the time I attended school in Britain - or as grown-up as I'll ever get."

"An SF author who reads only SF will have little new to contribute, but someone with a broader experience will bring more to the table."

"For every SF reader of that period, Robert A. Heinlein was also a touchstone."

"How long it takes to write a book depends on its length."

"It's hard to generalize, because they're all different. When I started, I decided to take as much advantage as I could of the freedom offered by the SF field."

"That's why editors and publishers will never be obsolete: a reader wants someone with taste and authority to point them in the direction of the good stuff, and to keep the awful stuff away from their door."

"The decisions about which technologies to include were strictly pragmatic. I got rid of anything that would get in the way of the drama."

"Working within the limitations of the shared world generally made the writing easier, because I didn't have to invent any of the characters or background, which is usually the hardest part."

"I'm in favor of any technology that makes my work available to the reading public at a reasonable price."

"Science fiction readers probably have the gene for novelty, and seem to enjoy a cascade of invention as much as a writer enjoys providing one."

"Even if you only want to write science fiction, you should also read mysteries, poetry, mainstream literature, history, biography, philosophy, and science."