I'd finished the first two [books] and they were going to to be published, and [editor] said, "We need you to write a summary that will drive people to these books." And it took forever. I couldn't think of a thing to say. I looked at the back of other children's books that were full of giddy praise and corny rhetorical questions, you know, "Will she have a better time at summer camp than she thinks?" "How will she escape from the troll's dungeon?" All these terrible, terrible summaries of books, and I just couldn't.

The real Santa Claus is at the mall.

This is an absurd moral, for you and I both know that sometimes not only is it good to lie, it is necessary to lie.

Writing is a dying form. One reads of this every day.

I go to bed early and rise late and feel as if I have hardly slept, probably because I have been reading almost the entire time.

The only thing he cares about.

You must be all a-tingle with excitement.' 'I guess so,' I said, but I did not feel a-tingle. I did not feel a-anything.