I think that we want to be led slightly astray when we're being told a story. Just a little wrong footed.

Nobody tells her to shut up. It would be pointless. Amy has a large heart and an even larger mouth. When it rains, Amy rescues worms off the sidewalk. When you get tired of having a secret, you tell Amy. Understand: Amy isn't that much stupider than anyone else in the story. It's just that she thinks out loud.

There are stories about winter ghosts found tangled like lice in their lovers' hair. Dead people have no hair themselves, which is how they can be recognized in winter. But in summer, the living and dead may pass each other on the street, and no one knows the difference.

No wizard has ever made himself useful by magic, or, if they've tried, they've only made matters worse. No wizard ever stopped a war or mended a fence. It's better that they stay in their marshes, out of the way of worldly folk like farmers and soldiers and merchants and kings.

Look. All books are weird when you think about it.... It goes without saying that real life is also weird.

When I'm up for an award, there are usually two or three other things on the ballot that I like better than my own fiction.

You have to salvage what you can, even if you're the one who buried it in the first place.