Quotations that I like and love (a living list)

Sense only makes sense in contrast to Nonsense. I think that is why children are so amused by Nonsense. Also because our “Sense” often makes so little sense to them, this Nonsense of our so-called sense becomes a private joke among children.

Margaret Wise Brown

Source: Brown, Margaret Wise. 1951. “Creative writing for very young children” in The Book of Knowledge: 1951 Annual. E.V. McLoughlin, ed. The Grolier Society NYC, NY.

I think that speculative fiction, and all fiction, inevitably, is about the world around it. You can’t write or read without society being in the chair with you. I think that you might as well know that, and use it to texture your fiction. Obviously that doesn’t mean you have to accept – or even be conscious of – my politics, to read the story. That’s why it’s fiction.

China Mieville

Source: Chouinard, Gabriel. 2001. Interview with China Mieville. Infinity Plus Books. London, UK.