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There are divers men who make a great show of loyalty, and pretend to such discretion in the hidden things they hear, that at the end folk come to put faith in them.

It's not just dead men who tell no tales. Live ones don't have much to say for themselves, either.

There are stories I'd like to tell, I'd like to see, and they're not getting made. These stories are beyond the experience of the people in power. They don't understand it, so they're frightened of it.

We too often bind ourselves by authorities rather than by the truth.

I wonder what it is that the people who criticize me for telling this story truly object to: is it that I have dared to tell the story? Or that the story turns out not to be the one they wanted to hear?

No authority is higher than reality.

Whenever you're telling a story about true-life events and about real people, there's a tremendous responsibility-slash-burden to get it right.

There is pressure when you have a very big book like 'Shadow Divers' to follow up with something big. But you can't let that pressure determine what you do. You just look for the best stories, and when you find a great one, you tell it.

Even a writer like me, who, in 'The Firebird,' is telling the story of people who've been dead for nearly three centuries, needs to take care. Those people may not be around any longer to tell me what actually happened, but neither are they able to defend themselves against unjust portrayals.

We can't constantly tell stories of heroes. We have to hear the other stories, too, about people in dire straits who make bad choices.