Actually, writers have no business writing about their own works. They either wax conceited, saying things like: 'My brilliance is possibly most apparent in my dazzling short story, "The Cookie pants Hypotenuse."' Or else they get unbearably cutesy: 'My cat Ootsywootums has given me all my best ideas, hasn't OO, squeezes?

— Connie Willis

And every place and time an author writes about is imaginary, from Oz to Raymond Chandler's L.A. to Dickens's London.

— Connie Willis

Cats, as you know, are quite impervious to threats.

— Connie Willis

Come here, cat. You wouldn’t want to destroy the space-time continuum, would you? Meow. Meow.

— Connie Willis

Don't they know science doesn't work like that? You can't just order scientific breakthroughs. They happen when you are looking at something you've been working on for years and suddenly see a connection you never noticed before, or when you're looking for something else altogether. Sometimes they even happen by accident. Don't they know you can't get a scientific breakthrough just because you want one?

— Connie Willis

Eureka!’s like the one Archimedes had when he stepped in a bathtub and suddenly realized the answer to the problem of testing metals' density are few and far between, and mostly it's just trying and failing and trying something else, feeding in data and eliminating variables and staring at the results, trying to figure out where you went wrong.

— Connie Willis

Good. Drink your tea," he ordered. "It will make you feel better." Nothing will make me feel better, she thought, but she drank it down. It was hot and sweet. Mr. Humphreys must have put his entire month's sugar ration into it. She drained the cup, feeling ashamed of herself. She wasn't the only one who'd had a bad night.

— Connie Willis

It is the end of the world. Surely you could be allowed a few carnal thoughts.

— Connie Willis

It was about a girl who helps an ugly old woman who turns out to be a good fairy in disguise. Inner values versus shallow appearances.

— Connie Willis

It was the Communists, it was the Mexicans, it was the government. And the only people who acknowledged their guilt weren't guilty at all.

— Connie Willis