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!

Clones fit in. Freaks stand out. Ask me which one I prefer.

Nat Parson says it's the devil's mark." "Nat Parson's a gobshite." Maddy was torn between a natural feeling of sacrilege and a deep admiration of anyone who dared call a parson 'gobshite.

...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.

The process of writing is a little like madness, a kind of possession not altogether benign.

Guilleaume left La Praline with a small bag of florentines in his pocket; before he had turned the corner of avenue des Francs Bourgeois I saw him stoop to offer one to the dog. A pat, a bark, a wagging of the short stubby tail. As I said, some people never have to think about giving.

You don't write because someone sets assignments! You write because you need to write, or because you hope someone will listen or because writing will mend something broken inside you or bring something back to life.