Before catechisms can instill a proper humility, small children know the truth that their own existence has caused the world to bloom into being.

I may not be sure if monsters exist, but I’d rather live my life in doubt than be persuaded by a real experience of one.

I never write a book unless I can't help it. Something has to bother me, like a mosquito, until I have to do something to relieve the itch.

We only have babies when we're young enough not to know how grim life turns out. Once we really get the full measure of it--we're slow learners, we women--we dry up in disgust and sensibly halt production.

Galinda didn't often stop to consider whether she believed in what she said or not; the whole point of conversations was flow.

Indeed, she often wondered if she were dead, or dying from the inside out, and that was the root of her calm, the reason she could surrender her character.

It's the work that's important, not the individual who does it.