P.G. Wodehouse was a huge influence on me when I was younger, as were Edgar Rice Burroughs and George Bernard Shaw. Michael Moorcock More Quotes by Michael Moorcock More Quotes From Michael Moorcock The book trade invented literary prizes to stimulate sales, not to reward merit. Michael Moorcock literary-merit rewards book By means of our myths and legends we maintain a sense of what we are worth and who we are. Without them we should undoubtedly go mad. Michael Moorcock legends mad mean Elric knew that everything that existed had its opposite. In danger he might find peace. And yet, of course, in peace there was danger. Being an imperfect creature in an imperfect world he would always know paradox. And that was why in paradox there was always a kind of truth. That was why philosophers and soothsayers flourished. In a perfect world there would be no place for them. In an imperfect world the mysteries were always without solution and that was why there was always a great choice of solutions. Michael Moorcock imperfect-world opposites peace The Lords of Chaos are Michael Moorcock chaos logic enemy Americans need bullshit the way koala bears need eucalyptus leaves. They've become totally addicted to it. They get so much of it back home that they can't survive without it. Michael Moorcock koalas bullshit home It is almost impossible to have a baseless snobbish opinion of the General Theory of Relativity. Michael Moorcock opinion theory impossible Because I had sought to challenge Destiny, Destiny had taken vengeance. Michael Moorcock destiny taken challenges When gods die, self-respect buds', murmured Orland Fank. 'Gods and their examples are not needed by those who respect themselves and, consequently, respect others. Gods are for children, for little, fearful people, for those who would have no responsibility to themselves or their fellows. Michael Moorcock atheist responsibility children Destiny's Champion, Fate's fool. Eternity's Soldier, Time's Tool. Michael Moorcock champion fate destiny Doomed Lord's Passing. For the mind of man alone is free to explore the lofty vastness of the cosmic infinite, to transcend ordinary consciousness, to roam the secret corridors of the brain where past and future melt into one...And universe and individual are linked, the one mirrored in the other, and each contains the other. Michael Moorcock secret men past I think of myself as a bad writer with big ideas, but I'd rather be that than a big writer with bad ideas. Michael Moorcock bigs ideas thinking It is only about things which concern us most profoundly that we lie clearly and with profound conviction. Michael Moorcock conviction profound lying Trapped. Sinking. Can't be myself. Made into what other people expect. Is that everyone's fate? Were the great individualists the products of their friends who wanted a great individualist as a friend? Michael Moorcock self-made fate people Arthuriana has become a genre in itself, more like TV soap opera where people think they know the characters. All that's fair enough, but it does remove the mythic power of the feminine and masculine principles. So I prefer it in its original form, even if you have to wade through Mallory's 'Le Morte d'Arthur' - people smashing people for pages and pages! It still has the resonances of myth about it, which makes it work for me. I don't want to know if Mordred led an unhappy childhood or not. Michael Moorcock unhappy-childhood character thinking What happened to fantasy for me is what also happened to rock and roll. It found a common denominator for making maximum money. As a result, it lost its tensions, its anger, its edginess and turned into one big cup of cocoa. Michael Moorcock edginess rock-and-roll rocks Legends are best left as legends and attempts to make them real are rarely successful Michael Moorcock legends real successful Here, I thought, I had found the human race in its final stages of decadence perverse, insouciant, without ambition. And I could not blame them. After all, they had no future. Michael Moorcock finals ambition race The past is a script we are constantly rewriting. Michael Moorcock rewriting scripts past Introduce your main characters and themes in the first third of your novel. If you are writing a plot-driven genre novel make sure all your major themes/plot elements are introduced in the first third, which you can call the introduction. Develop your themes and characters in your second third, the development. Resolve your themes, mysteries and so on in the final third, the resolution. Michael Moorcock plot writing character It remains a mystery to me why some of that [pulp] fiction should be judged inferior to the rafts and rafts of bad social [literary] fiction which continues to be treated by literary editors as if it were somehow superior, or at least worthier of our attention. The careerist literary imperialism of the Bloomsbury years did a lot to produce fiction's present unseemly polarities. Michael Moorcock editors attention years
