The sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.

We're standing on the deck that's all wooden like the deck of a ship. There's fuzz on it, little bundles. Grandma says it's some kind of pollen from a tree. "Which one?" I'm staring up at all the differents. "Can't help you there, I'm afraid." In Room we knowed what everything was called but in the world there's so much, persons don't even know the names.

Nowadays, 'invisibility' was supposed to be the big problem, but the way I saw it was, all that mattered was to be visible to yourself.

...sentences swallowed and sung back and swallowed all over again. She was made entirely out of words.

I thought one way to try to hold on to the power was to write the script myself. That way, I could say to filmmakers, "I'm not asking you to hire me unseen. I'm just saying, 'Here's my script. Can we work together?'" So that worked out well.

She leaped into space, high, higher than she'd ever been in her life. She came down with a clean snap, and the crowd scattered like birds from the swing of her feet.

So much as I enjoy big novels of epic sweep, I often find, say, if they follow several generations, by the third generation, I'm not caring about the people anymore.