22 Quotes by Harry Turtledove

I first tried a novel when I was 14. First finished one when I was 16. First started working on stuff that had a chance of being salable in my early 20s, then didn’t write much fiction at all because I was in grad school.

Fiction has to be plausible. All history has to do is happen.

People you don’t like are pigheaded. Your friends are stubborn, or hold to their purpose.

A horsefly can’t do a horse much real damage, but it can drive it wild anyhow.

You can write better about a place you’ve seen for yourself. You don’t have to have been there – I’ve sure written about places I’ve never seen – but it does help.

I do first draft in longhand, which saves a lot of rewriting. I try to get a certain amount done each day. Don’t always, but I try. Then I clean up in the rewrites.

The difference between bad and worse is a lot bigger than the difference between good and better.

Holy Jesus God, it’s the Gerps shootin’ us up!” the manager shouted. He hadn’t known whether to say Germans or Japs, and came out with both at once.

People were as they were, not not as he wished them to be.