Walter Jon Williams famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

I'm not afraid of werewolves or vampires or haunted hotels, I'm afraid of what real human beings to do other real human beings.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Real #Ghouls #Vampire
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.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Moving #Taken #Work Out
Try to meet as many authors, agents, and editors as you can.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Editors #Trying #Agents
Even if you only want to write science fiction, you should also read mysteries, poetry, mainstream literature, history, biography, philosophy, and science.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Philosophy #Writing #Science
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.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Science #Fiction #Novelty
When state and religion are one, religion becomes a means for the powerful to remain in power.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Powerful #Mean #Power
The Internet offers an interesting combination of advertising and community - by participating in the community you can become an advertisement for yourself.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Interesting #Community #Advertising
It's a tough job to tell a story when the audience already knows the ending, and the ending is bleak.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Jobs #Stories #Tough
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.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Doors #Editors #Want
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.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Writing #Character #World
I now have to find a reason to write, every single day.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Writing #Reason
I was pretty much grown-up by the time I attended school in Britain - or as grown-up as I'll ever get.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#School #Britain
I went to college, though I didn't take many writing courses.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Writing #College
I've experienced writer's block, but never for more than a few days.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Block
The mass-market paperback, for one, is too expensive.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Mass
The Rift, which was well over a thousand pages of manuscript, took two years.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Years #Two #Pages
Now I have to motivate myself much more than I had previously.
-- Walter Jon Williams
If you can find collaborators whose strengths compliment your own, the result can be more than the sum of its authors.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Compliment #Results
How long it takes to write a book depends on its length.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Book #Writing #Long
I can't speak for the other authors, but what I hoped to achieve was to illuminate certain corners of the Lucas universe that hadn't yet been explored.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Afterlife #Speak #Achieve
I want a platform that, like a book or a magazine, I can carry into the bath or leave at the beach.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Beach #Book #Want
Right up till the 1980s, SF envisioned giant mainframe computers that ran everything remotely, that ingested huge amounts of information and regurgitated it in startling ways, and that behaved (or were programmed to behave) very much like human beings... Now we have 14-year-olds with more computing power on their desktops than existed in the entire world in 1960. But computers in fiction are still behaving in much the same way as they did in the Sixties. That's because in fiction [artificial intelligence] has to follow the laws of dramatic logic, just like human characters.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Character #Years #Law
Some of my ideas were shot down by Lucasfilm because they stepped on territory that has been reserved for the movies. I didn't have a problem with that.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Movie #Ideas #Territory
Genre labels are useful only insofar as they help you find an audience.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Labels #Helping #Genre
Everything that you read is an influence on everything you write, and you want to draw as many elements into your work as you can.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Writing #Elements #Want
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.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Tables #Littles
Being a writer was never a choice, it was an irresistible compulsion.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Choices #Irresistible #Compulsion
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.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Intelligent #College #People
I'm in favor of any technology that makes my work available to the reading public at a reasonable price.
-- Walter Jon Williams

#Reading #Technology #Favors

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