I hate desks; they make me feel like a child doing homework.

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

Once I spent a whole day there, a blade of grass in each hand to anchor me to the warm earth. I watched the sun rise, pass over my head and set. Ladybirds mated on my knuckle; a shrew nibbled a hole in my stocking while I tried not to laugh. Such a day was worth any punishment.

The world is always changing brightness and hotness and soundness, I never know how it's going to be the next minute.

There are so many examples today of how the kind of wonderful zealousness and unquestioning loyalty of young people can be harnessed by all sorts of insidious powers.

I watch his hands, they're lumpy but clever. "Is there a word for adults when they aren't parents?" Steppa laughs. "Folks with other things to do?

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.