HUGH HOWEY

I'd rather excite the imagination of a legion of readers and make pennies from each of them than hold off for a larger chunk of change from only a handful of fans.

I'm such a huge fan of fan fiction, to me it's a great way for readers to become writers. It's like putting the training wheels on for writing.

My approach with social media is to interact with the readers I already have. I do it mostly to procrastinate from my writing. It's an escape. It's the only socializing I get outside of my wife, and she gets sick of me.

One of the many things that surprised me about 'Wool' is how many of its fans don't consider themselves science fiction readers.

Honestly, I don't think I'm a good promoter. I spend almost zero time or effort asking new readers to sample or purchase my work. That's not the job of the author. We should write our best material and leave it up to readers to spread the word.

There are two competing philosophies in 'Wool': one is that people have to live under an iron thumb in order to survive, and the other one is that everyone should live completely freely and happily and everything will sort itself out.

Ever since I was twelve, I dreamed of being an author. I just never had the fortitude to see any of my stories through to completion. I would start a book, get a few chapters in, and grow bored or get distracted by something else.

The commerce of this country is almost entirely confined to slaves

Heroes didn't win. The heroes were whoever happened to win. History told their story -- the dead didn't say a word. All of it was bullshit.

Evan Price is not a man to be questioned. He is a man who will question you.

Imagine the first discovery that one of these epidemics was man-made—the panic, the violence that would ensue. That’s where the end would come. A typhoon kills a few hundred people, does a few billion in damage, and what do we do?” Erskine interlocked his fingers. “We come together. We put the pieces back. But a terrorist’s bomb.” He frowned. “A terrorist’s bomb does the same damage, and it throws the world into turmoil.” He spread his hands apart like an explosion going off. “When there’s only God to blame, we forgive him. When it’s our fellow man, we must destroy him.

I'm coming for you. I'm coming home, I'm coming to clean

I use social media not to ask new people to like my stuff. I use social media to connect with that one reader who likes my stuff.

It was a sad loss, this illusion of importance, a humbling blow.

When there’s only God to blame, we forgive him. When it’s our fellow man, we destroy him.

some things are better off back in the past. Where they belong.

We are not the people who made this world, Lukas, but it's up to us to survive it. You need to understand that." "We can't control where we are right now," he mumbled, "just what we do going forward.

I am about to die. It is September 11, and every cell in my body is acutely aware of my looming demise. The certainty of it. The inevitability. Not years from now, not weeks nor days. Moments.

Sometimes a thing needed opening before closure was found.

He thought of men like Hitler, Stalin, and Napoleon. All it took was a lot of seemingly decent people to put the wrong person in power and then fall under their spell.

It’s easy to forgo distractions and to not accumulate things when you have a larger goal on the horizon.

My only wish is that we leave room for hope. There is good and bad in all things. We find what we expect to find. We see what we expect to see. I have learned that if I tilt my head just right and squint, the world outside is beautiful. The future is bright. There are good things to come.

Living frugally is one of the best things an author can do to prepare for their career.

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Statistics were magic like this: they could tell you with near-certainty that a thing would occur, without a hint of when or where.