No one you'd really like to see in public office has the bad taste to run.

Some people never learn how to talk to kids. They turn up the volume and enunciate with extra care, as if talking to a partially deaf immigrant. They sound as if they're reading lines somebody else wrote for them, or as if what they're saying is really for the benefit of other adults listening and not just for the child. Kids sense that and turn off.

This dazzling, unput-downable debut novel proves beyond a doubt that Dan Wells has the gift. His teenage protagonist is as chilling as he is endearing. More John Wayne Cleaver, please.

Your believing or not believing in karma has no effect on its existence, nor on its consequences to you. Just as a refusal to believe in the ocean would not prevent you from drowning.

Writing is solitary, so I love going out once in a while and meeting my readers. I'll often hang with them after a signing for some beers. They're invariably bright!

Money. . . those who don't have enough of it are only aware of what it can buy them. When you finally have enough of it you become aware- acutely aware-of all the things it can't buy ... the really important things, like youth, health, love, peace of mind.

I love seeing the light go on in aspiring writers' eyes when you point out ways to improve their prose or their story - when they get it.