I do think of emotions as being on a circular path, so you can feel terrible and terrible and terrible, and then all of a sudden it becomes quite funny.

There are few sights sadder than a ruined book.

The key to good eavesdropping is not getting caught.

The idea that the curtain rises on what is often more or less a happy scene, and it will fall just a few hours later, and everyone will be dead or have gone mad... I find that kind of narrative very appealing.

I'd written my first novel for adults, which was called Basic Eight and was set in a high school, and we were having a devil of a time selling it. It ended up in the hands of an editor of a children's publishing house, for which it was entirely inappropriate. She said, "Well, we can't publish this, but I think you should write something for children," which I thought was a really terrible idea.

the mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart has one:yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done.

If I were to say, "Yes, I am a fascinating, erudite person," what would that say about me? I don't know.