“Can you take orders?” “I was in the army.” “What does that mean?” “Means yes.” - Larry Niven

Parlette spoke slowly and evenly. "I am trying to prevent a bloodbath. Is that clear enough for you? I'm trying to prevent a civil war that could kill half the people in this world."

Writing is, therefore, both a form of compulsive behavior and, I frequently tell people, a self-induced form of mental illness. Those few writers who don’t start off by being a little nuts soon get that way as a direct result of their vocation.

There’s a fine line between sensible emotional restraint, and the withdrawal symptoms of a stimulus junkie denied her fix.