Life & Wisdom Quote by Stephen R. Donaldson

A chill little sentence that functions like a slammed door. Donaldson isn’t merely noting a change of plans; he’s asserting authorship as refusal. In a culture that trains writers (and audiences) to treat worlds and characters as intellectual property to be endlessly “expanded,” “no intention” reads like a veto against the franchise instinct. The line is clean, almost bureaucratic, which is part of its bite: it denies emotional bargaining. No nostalgia, no apology, no coy “never say never.” Just control.

The phrasing also demystifies creativity. Characters and settings aren’t muses that haunt him; they’re material he can pick up or put down. That stance is quietly heretical in fantasy, where readers often assume the imagined world has a kind of moral claim on the author, and where the market rewards return trips. Donaldson’s work is known for moral abrasion and psychological consequence, not comfort. This sentence feels consistent with that ethic: closure matters, and revisiting can dilute the original wound.

Subtextually, there’s an implied audience in the room: the interviewer, the fan, the publisher, the part of the author tempted by the familiar. The sentence anticipates pressure and preemptively declines it. It’s also a defense of artistic risk. By refusing to “pursue” what already worked, Donaldson signals that repetition is the real failure mode, not stopping. In eight words, he makes the most unfashionable claim in genre culture: sometimes the story ends because it should.