- Perception of memory, and understanding it, is probably the central theme in most of my novels. [interview in The Third Alternative magazine, 1998]
- I grew up reading science fiction, and within three months of discovering it, I knew I wanted to write science fiction. [Interview in Locus magazine, June 2006]
- [about his 1984 novel The Glamour:] The Glamour was once spoken of as a major Hollywood vehicle for Barbra Streisand and Christopher Walken, a fact which ten years later still has the power to make my goolies shrink in horror. [interview with David Langford, 1995]
- [about his work The Book on the Edge of Forever: An Enquiry into the Non-Appearance of Harlan Ellison's the Last Dangerous Visions:] The essay started as a conscious exercise in investigative journalism. You don't get much of that in the sf world, and the Ellison non-anthology was a God-given story just waiting to be written. I think it came as sheer novelty to most people. All those lies and evasions, the bragging and boasting, the promises and betrayals. The story has a horrid fascination when it's set out factually. At first I thought that people would simply read the story, say tut-tut, and pass on to something else. What I hadn't counted on was the army of Ellison camp-followers. These come in all persuasions, from the worst sort of toady up to a kind of fannish armed militiaman, bent on crazed revenge against Ellison for some long-ago slight, real or imaginary. When my essay first came out I got piles of mail from these types, respectively threatening me, and urging me to put on camo gear and pack a machine pistol. At this point I realized the thing could run and run. ... Latterly, it's been egged on by Ellison himself. It seems that every time interest dies down, Ellison pops up to threaten me with something, or to make up some bizarre new explanation of his inertia. As you know, in recent weeks he's been comparing himself wonderfully with Michelangelo, working slowly but surely in the Sistine Chapel, while an angry pope rages below, insensitive as ever to genius. All this makes me think that in some odd way my essay gratifies his ego. [interview with David Langford, 1995]
- [concerning an anecdote in his novel The Prestige about a Chinese stage magician who pretended to be crippled for his best trick to work:] Yes, that anecdote is genuine, and was what originally suggested the idea of the book. This particular magician is often muddled up with another one with an almost identical name, who is in some ways even more interesting. 'Chung Ling Soo' was actually an American (real name William Campbell) [sic; Priest meant William Robinson (1861-1918)] who performed as a Chinese, in a direct lift from my man, Ching Ling Foo. It was Soo who was famously shot while trying to catch a bullet in his teeth. [interview with David Langford, 1995]
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