I always wanted to ride a dragon myself, so I decided to do this for a year in my imagination.

Many [book] even lay flat in the floor open. Their spines upward. Elinor couldn't bear to look! Didn't the monster know that was the way to break a book's neck?

Who are you?' Mo looked at the White Women. Then he looked at Dustfinger's still face. Guess.' The bird ruffled up its golden feathers, and Mo saw that the mark on its breast was blood. You are Death.' Mo felt the word heavy on his tongue. Could any word be heavier?

Dustfinger still clearly remembered the feeling of being in love for the first time. How vulnerable his heart had suddenly been! Such a trembling, quivering thing, happy and miserably unhappy at once.

He longed for the deep as she longed for the night sky and for white lilies floating on water -- although she still tried to convince herself that love alone could feed her soul.

I just did a picture book called The Wildest Brother on Earth, and you will find both of my children in there.

This world,' she said. 'Do you really like it?' What a question! Farid never asked himself such things. He was glad to be with Dustfinger again and didn't mind where that was. It's a cruel world, don't you think?' Meggie went on. 'Mo often told me I forget how cruel it is too easily.' With his burned fingers, Farid stroke her fair hair. It shone even in the dark. 'They're all cruel,' he said. 'The world I come from, the world you come from, and this one, too. Maybe the people don't see the cruelty in your world right away, it's better hidden, but it's there all the same.