Marie Brennan

“I'm a writer; as soon as I imagine what would happen if I found the fountain of youth, it turns into a dystopia in my head.”

“One does not cease to treasure a gem simply because one owns another that is larger.”

“I'm the sort of person who, once I put dragons into the real world, feels obliged to think about how their presence would have changed history.”

“Utopias bore me. I'm interested in constructing messy, complicated societies that are full of flaws and then saying, ooh, this is interesting, let's see what happens if I poke it here. And concurrently with this and the previous point, I'm interested in making up cultures that are different”

“I read a lot of the 'Pern books' growing up - basically up through 'All the Weyrs of Pern,' maybe a couple after that. As far as formative dragon influences are concerned, she's probably one of the top ones; I know I read other fantasy novels that had them, but none particularly stick in mind.”

“I honestly think anthropology is one of the most useful fields a fantasy writer can study, more so even than history.”

“Their characteristics are well-known. They're beautiful -- when they're not astoundingly ugly. They're both goddesses for men to worship, and demons for them to flee. They adore children, sometimes to the point of unhealthy obsession. They have a strong association with nature, from which they're often assumed to draw magical power. Their anger is a terrible thing to behold, and all the more fearsome because anything can spark it; the rules by which these creatures operate are not those of rational men. They are creatures of fanciful whim, and they never, ever, can be understood.I'm talking, of course, about women.”

“The truth is that real history was a lot more complicated than our popular understandings lead us to believe.”

“I have often found this to be true since, that matters which seem terribly important in the early days of such a journey (what will people back home say?) fade into triviality with the passage of time.”

“There is no faster way to harden my determination than to assume I will fail at it.”

“At one point in the 'Onyx Court' series, I think during 'In Ashes Lie', I suggested that Lune might come to love someone else eventually. Which was me pushing back against the narrative trope that people only get one True Love in their entire lives - an idea I think is kind of pernicious - but in retrospect, I wish I hadn't done it there.”

“... There may not be even two men living in the world whom I would have agreed to marry, certainly not on such short notice. But I do not need two; I only need one.”

“My mood depends heavily on what happens to me right after I get up.”

“...A widow has freedoms a wife does not. But when I look at you, I do not see obstacles for my career, I see-" My face burned even more. "I see wings. A way to fly higher and further than I can on my own.”

“Jake accompanied us as well, having arrived in Akhia shortly before the excavation team departed. I did not tell him our destination until we were safely away from civilization, and found my caution abundantly justified: he whooped and danced about so much, he fell off his camel and broke his left arm.”

“I think if you write for long enough, you eventually have a problem with everything, because you start figuring out where you could be doing better. But as far back as I can trace, I always wrote clear, grammatical prose.”

“I chose my pen name when I was ten, because I knew even then that my legal name would be more trouble than it was worth.”

“There was a brief period of time when I was very young where I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian - largely because I liked cats - but then somebody told me I would have to cut animals open, and that was the end of that.”

“I'd love to see more novels and short stories where the characters have their own folklore that isn't the Plot-Bearing Prophecy of Doom.”

“When I'm working on a novel, I generally do write every day, but in between those marathons, I take breaks. My brain needs time to recharge.”