A child who can love the oddities of a fantasy book cannot possibly be xenophobic as an adult. What is a different color, a different culture, a different tongue for a child who has already mastered Elvish, respected Puddleglums, or fallen under the spell of dark-skinned Ged?

Language helps develp life as surely as it reflects life. It is a most important part of our human condition.

It's never perfect when I write it down the first time, or the second time, or the fifth time. But it always gets better as I go over it and over it.

You can only chase a butterfly for so long.

Fairy Tales always have a happy ending.' That depends... on whether you are Rumpelstiltskin or the Queen.

Just write. If you have to make a choice, if you say, 'Oh well, I'm going to put the writing away until my children are grown,' then you don't really want to be a writer. If you want to be a writer, you do your writing... If you don't do it, you probably don't want to be a writer, you just want to have written and be famous—which is very different.

Folklore is the perfect second skin. From under its hide, we can see all the shimmering, shadowy uncertainties of the world.