Ted Chiang

I can't recommend technical writing as a day job for fiction writers because it's going to be hard to write all day and then come home and write fiction.

The universe began as an enormous breath being held. I am glad that it did... until this great exhalation is finished, my thoughts live on.

Probably the most formative experience was reading the 'Foundation' trilogy when I was about twelve years old. That wasn't the first science fiction I had ever read, but it's something that stands out in my memory as having had a big impact on me.

I started submitting stories for publication when I was about 15, but it was many years before I sold anything. I don't make my living writing science fiction, so in that sense, I'm still not a pro.

When I was a kid, I figured I would be a physicist when I grew up, and then I would write science fiction on the side. The physicist thing didn't pan out, but writing science fiction on the side did.

We don't normally think of it as such, but writing is a technology.