When I am emperor, I will abolish private education. Private schools, private college. All of these parents with money and energy and the drive for bake sales and a desire to leave their vast fortunes to education - everybody would have to be eating out of the same educational pot.

I love telling people what to read. It's my favorite thing in the world, to buy books and force books on people, take bad books away from people, give them better books.

The quality of gifts depends on the sincerity of the giver.

People gave me such a bad time about wanting a baby. I didn't want a baby, and I still don't. I wanted a dog.

Guns are dangerous and damaging even when no one gets shot. They really do loom.

The idea I pursue is the one that keeps coming back to me. The characters I think about as I'm falling asleep at night or when I'm driving to the grocery store are the one's I wind up writing about.

The love between humans is the thing that nails us to the earth.