Before she realized he was next to her, he had placed his hands over hers on the countertop, then hooped his fingers through hers. Gretel looked up at him, so startled she might as well have been shot. 'I just wanted to wake you up', he said. Which is exactly what he did. One look at him and her heart was racing. One look, and whatever had been before was all over.

Being an outsider is the one thing we all have in common.

Women know things that men will never know. We keep the best secrets. We tell the best stories.

You can't dispute the ridiculous. You can't argue reasonably with evil.

That is the joy of reading fiction: when all is said and done, the novel belongs to the reader and his or her imagination.

[Fairy tales] are like a journey to the woods and the many ways you can get lost. Some people say it's not a good idea to read fairy tales to anyone under the age of eight because they are brutal and raw. When I was a kid I often felt that kids's books were speaking down to me, but I never felt that way about fairy tales. They are bloody and scary, but so is life.

The weak are cruel. The strong have no need to be.