Teresa Nielsen Hayden

“The first function of a generic protocol is to keep you from having to think.”

“Don't write what you know. Write what you are.”

“Silence is the unbearable repartee.”

“Trust your readers. They're smarter than you think.”

“Intelligence is not a moral category.”

“Being right is not a license to be needlessly rude.”

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”

“When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat.”

“Obscurity is a far more dangerous threat to authors than piracy.”

“The world is full of boring, identical people. You're not one of them.”

“It's all right to make mistakes; nothing is perfect. Life is messy.”

“Fandom is a way of saying 'I am not alone.'”

“The opposite of 'political' is not 'neutral.' The opposite of 'political' is 'private.'”