Piers Anthony

"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."

"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!"

"I think it's a shame that something as creative and vital to the nature of the human species as story-telling is largely controlled by the soulless cretins known as publishers."

"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’re not that way from perversity, and we cannot just 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."

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