Caroline Kennedy

John and I were lucky because our mother was a strong woman with high expectations and a strong sense of values. She encouraged us to pursue things we were interested in and not think about what other people wanted us to do.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.

The thrill of a photo-realist painter is if you get really close to the painting, it looks just like a photograph. Whereas in my case, if you get close to my paintings, they totally fall apart - so I'm about as far from a photo-realist as it gets.