Gazzy: (Hugging himself and jumping up and down) "I'm brilliant! I'm a genius! I can blow up the world!" Max: (Raises her eyebrows) Gazzy: "Not that I would want to, of course," (coughs)

Gazzy sniffed the air. "That's explosives. It smells like Christmas!" Okay, so we've had somewhat untraditional Christmases. With explosives.

Don’t be afraid.” “I hear voices,” Iggy said. “Be very afraid.

Maybe he was a good a good whitecoat—like Jeb. And maybe the moon was made of cream cheese.

If it's commercial fiction that you want to write, it's story, story, story. You've got to get a story where if you tell it to somebody in a paragraph, they'll go, "Tell me more." And then when you start to write it, they continue to want to read more. And if you don't, it won't work.

Sundown had bloodied the horizon over the uneven rooftops of South Boston. Birds were perched on every roof and seemed to be watching the girl walking slowly below. - Cradle and All

There's no such thing as a kid who hates reading. There are kids who love reading, and kids who are reading the wrong books.