Every new promise was like something heavy I had to carry, with no place to put anything down.

Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make - bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake - if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble.

The Long Goodbye' is one book I like to read over and over again, and it was an enormous inspiration for 'All The Wrong Questions'.

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.

They didn't understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so.

Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree on what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear.

The real Santa Claus is at the mall.