In any case, fire burns; that's its nature, and you can't expect to change that. You can use it to cook your meat or to burn down your neighbor's house. And is the fire you use for cooking any different from the one you use for burning? And does that mean you should eat your supper raw?" Maddy shook her head, still puzzled. "So what you're saying is . . . I shouldn't play with fire," she said at last. Of course you should," said One-Eye gently. "But don't be surprised if the fire plays back.

...we do not simply get showered with Hollywood money because we happened to write a little story about wizards one day. It's not winning the lottery. It's a real job, which real people do, and they have the same real problems as other real people.

Death should be a celebration. Like a birthday. I want to go up like a rocket when my time comes, and fall down in a cloud of stars, and hear everyone go: ahh!

As authors, we all expect criticism from time to time, and we all have our ways of coping with unfriendly reviews.

To be closed from everything, and yet to feel, to think...This is the truth of hell, stripped of its gaudy medievalisms. This loss of contact.

I've nothing against kids reading anything they please, but I do have a problem with pink books for girls and black books for boys.

I'm insatiably curious.