Steven Saylor quotes:

I'm like the painter with his nose to the canvas, fussing over details. Gazing from a distance, the reader sees the big picture.

All writing is an act of self-exploration. Even a grocery list says something about you; how much more does a novel say?

Im like the painter with his nose to the canvas, fussing over details. Gazing from a distance, the reader sees the big picture.

Adrienne Mayor's inquiry into the myth--and surprising reality--of Amazon women begins with the fierce Greek huntress Atalanta, but takes us deep into the past and as far afield as the Great Wall of China. With the restless curiosity and meticulous scholarship that have become her hallmark, the author once again has found a gap in my bookshelf and filled it, admirably.

Even the crudest, most derivative novel is an expression of the author's hopes and fears and ideas about good and evil.

I can't say I had an ideal father, and I'm not a father myself.

Writing a first novel takes so much effort, with such little promise of result or reward, that it must necessarily be a labor of love bordering on madness.

Bears? Epaphroditus wrinkled his noseEveryone knows Prometheus was tormented by vultures. Every day they tore out his entrails, and every night he was miraculously healed, so that the ordeal was endlessly repeated.Martial laughedThe trainer who can induce vultures to attack on command will be able to name any price! I suspect we'll see a lot of bears today.

In politics, reality and appearance are of equal importance. You cannot attend to one and neglect the other. A man must determine both what he is, and what others believe him to be.

Not write what you know, but know what you write. If you write about a world before, after, or other than this one, enter that world completely. Search it to find your deepest longings and most terrible fears. Let imagination carry you as far as it may, as long as you recount the voyage with excitement and wonder. But this is the most important rule: write the book you most long to read.

Some men are one thing on the surface and another underneath. The true poet shows not just the exterior of his subject, but all the contradictions within, and lets the reader draw his own conclusions.

There is a fine sense of freedom that comes from wandering about a familiar city with no particular destination in mind, with no one to meet, no duties, no obligations. I had nothing to do and a thousand nameless, sun-drenched streets to do it in.