There are many reasons, of course, why someone might snap their fingers and grin. If you heard some pleasing music, for instance, you might snap your fingers and grin to demonstrate that the music had charms that could soothe your savage breast. If you were employed as a spy, you might snap your fingers and grin in order to deliver a message in secret snapping-and-grinning code.

I have produced things that I would say were sincerely cheerful. But then I am reminded by other people that no one else would see them that way.

They looked at each other like a pair of parentheses.

I suppose I'll have to add the force of gravity to my list of enemies.

The library was one enormous room, with long, high metal shelves and the perfect quiet that libraries provide for anyone looking for an answer.

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.

Sometimes words are not enough.