Normally it is not polite to go into somebody’s room without knocking, but you can make an exception if the person is dead, or pretending to be dead.

Thinking about something is like picking up a stone when taking a walk, either while skipping rocks on the beach, for example, or looking for a way to shatter the glass doors of a museum. When you think about something, it adds a bit of weight to your walk, and as you think about more and more things you are liable to feel heavier and heavier, until you are so burdened you cannot take any further steps, and can only sit and stare at the gentle movements of the ocean waves or security guards, thinking too hard bout too many things to do anything else.

It is one of the peculiar truths of life that people often say things that they know full well are ridiculous.

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.

I find reading screenplays difficult, as they're only a roadmap for what a movie might end up being.

Well-read people are less likely to be evil.

A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.