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" Yes - 90% of fantasy is crap. And so is 90% of science fiction and 90% of mystery fiction and 90% of literary fiction. "

George R. R. Martin

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" I was a novelist first. But in the mid-'80s, I did work in television for ten years. And yes, that was frequently the reaction to my scripts. People would say, 'You know, George, this is great. We love it, a terrific script, but it would cost five times our budget to shoot this.' "

George R. R. Martin

" Boy, there are days where I get up and say 'Where the hell did my talent go? Look at this crap that I'm producing here. This is terrible. Look, I wrote this yesterday. I hate this, I hate this.' "

George R. R. Martin

" I worked out of Hollywood for 10 years and I had my heart broken half a dozen times, so I know all the things that can go wrong. "

George R. R. Martin

" The vast majority of writers out there, they finish their books, and no one cares whether their book is late or ever comes out at all. And then it comes out, and two reviews are published, and it sells 12 copies. "

George R. R. Martin

" The success that the Tolkien books had redefined modern fantasy. "

George R. R. Martin

" I think that, in all of my time, I got just one fan letter, from an NFL fullback named Darian Barnes. NFL players might not have enough time for my books. "

George R. R. Martin

" Many writers will get a contract by selling chapters and outlines or something like that. I wrote the entire novel, and when it was all finished, I would give it to my agent and say, 'Well, here's a novel; sell it if you can.' And they would do that, and it was good because I never had anyone looking over my shoulder. "

George R. R. Martin

" The prejudice is still there, but it's breaking down. You have writers like Michael Chabon and The Yiddish Policemen's Union. He's a writer who's determined to break down genre barriers. He's done amazing things. "

George R. R. Martin

" I wrote six pilots, none of which ever got picked up. When you stop trying, it then it falls in your lap. "

George R. R. Martin

" All fiction has to have a certain amount of truth in it to be powerful. "

George R. R. Martin

" A lot of writing takes place in the subconscious, and it's bound to have an effect. "

George R. R. Martin

" I know some writers can write on the road, but I'm not one of them. "

George R. R. Martin

" You always try to do your own thing. One of the things I wanted to do was to write a book that combines some of the best traits of contemporary fantasy with some of the traits of the historical novel. "

George R. R. Martin

" In my 10 years that I spent out in TV and film, I had my shares of frustrations and annoyances and disappointments, but also I think it was, in the long run, it was very good for me in a whole bunch of ways. "

George R. R. Martin

" The distinction between literary and genre fiction is stupid and pernicious. It dates back to a feud between Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James. James won, and it split literature into two streams. But it's a totally false dichotomy. "

George R. R. Martin

" 'Rome' was one of my favourite shows, and I wish HBO had given it three more seasons 'cause I would have loved to continue watching it. "

George R. R. Martin

" I wanted to write a big novel, something epic in scale. "

George R. R. Martin

" I had a couple of friends, but I was mostly the kid with his nose in a book. "

George R. R. Martin

" I have an instinctual distrust of conventional happy endings. "

George R. R. Martin

" The odd thing about being a writer is you do tend to lose yourself in your books. Sometimes it seems like real life is flickering by and you're hardly a part of it. You remember the events in your books better than you remember the events that actually took place when you were writing them. "

George R. R. Martin

" I believe that a writer learns from every story he writes, and when you try different things, you learn different lessons. Working with other writers, as in Hollywood or in a shared world series, will also strengthen your skills, by exposing you to new ways of seeing the work, and different approaches to certain creative challenges. "

George R. R. Martin

" With a book I am the writer and I am also the director and I'm all of the actors and I'm the special effects guy and the lighting technician: I'm all of that. So if it's good or bad, it's all up to me. "

George R. R. Martin

" I've never been good with deadlines. My early novels, I wrote by myself. No one knew I was writing a novel; I didn't have a contract. "

George R. R. Martin

" 'Dreamsongs' allows me to show the scope of my writing - with personal commentary that puts the works in context and includes some autobiographical details intended to reveal how each piece came to be, what it represents, and how it has formed, or been informed by, my philosophy of writing. "

George R. R. Martin

" If you go all the way back, I've always written science-fiction, I've always written fantasy, I've always written horror stories and monster stories, right from the beginning of my career. I've always moved back and forth between the genres. I don't really recognise that there's a significant difference between them in some senses. "

George R. R. Martin

" There has to be a level of joy of what you're doing. "

George R. R. Martin

" I'm a huge fan of Tolkien. I read those books when I was in junior high school and high school, and they had a profound effect on me. I'd read other fantasy before, but none of them that I loved like Tolkien. "

George R. R. Martin

" Over the years, more than one reviewer has described my fantasy series, 'A Song of Ice and Fire', as historical fiction about history that never happened, flavoured with a dash of sorcery and spiced with dragons. I take that as a compliment. "

George R. R. Martin

" I don't know if I have any particular views about women in positions of power, though I do think it's more difficult for women, particularly in a Medieval setting. They have the additional problem that they're a woman and people don't want them in a position of power in an essentially patriarchal society. "

George R. R. Martin

" I have idea files of books that I want to write one of these days, stories I want to write one of these days, but I'll probably never get to them. "

George R. R. Martin