It is even better. Common Lisp macros are not a special macro language, but rather plain Lisp functions, which are run at compile time. This is important, becau

It is even better. Common Lisp macros are not a special macro language, but rather plain Lisp functions, which are run at compile time. This is important, because it means, you can write proper code in your development language for macro expansion instead of some obscure macro expansion language. This makes the process of writing macros rather robust and of course powerful. But of course, this means that like any program you write, you cannot guarantee that they terminate. For real-life macros that is rather a non-issue as they usually contain just a rather few lines of mostly simple code.