I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.

I attributed their behavior to the fact that they didn't have a TV, but television didn't teach you everything. Asking for candy on Halloween was called trick-or-treating, but asking for candy on November first was called begging, and it made people uncomfortable. This was one of the things you were supposed to learn simply by being alive, and it angered me that the Tomkeys did not understand it.

There is a reason there is no such thing as a folk writer. But to be a writer you have learn what it takes to captivate a reader in order to make them turn the page. And in order to learn that, you have to read.

The message was that if something is free, you should only take the best. If, on the other hand, you're forced to pay, it's best to lower the bar and not be so choosy.

Comfort has its place, but it seems rude to visit another country dressed as if you’ve come to mow its lawns.

In the Netherlands now, I imagine it's legal to marry your own children. Get them pregnant, and you can abort your unborn grandbabies in a free clinic that used to be a church.

What's strange is, the people who want to be in the position are never asked to be in the position. Like, if you don't want to do something, then people really want you to do it. And the more you say, "No, really, I'm sorry, it's really not for me," the more they want to convince you that it is, in fact, for you, and that you'd be absolutely perfect.