a pink taffeta evening gown. It looked like it had run away from a junior high prom... The dress looked like a petunia on steroids to me.

I just love dealing with people whose idea of sometimes is every thousand years,” I said.

I looked up at Ellen and her not-glowing pentagram. "Harm none is the rule, Ellen: bad witch, no cookie.

I will love you always. When this red hair is white, I will still love you. When the smooth softness of youth is replaced by the delicate softness of age, I will still want to touch your skin. When your face is full of the lines of every smile you have ever smiled, of every surprise I have seen flash through your eyes, when every tear you have ever cried has left its mark upon your face,I will treasure you all the more, because I was there to see it all. I will share your life with you, Meredith, and I will love you until the last breath leaves your body or mine.

I spend most of my waking hours confronting and destroying things that I fear. A thousand-year-old master vampire was a tall order, but a girl's got to have a goal.

Sometimes it's not the optimist you need, but another pessimist to walk beside you and know, absolutely know, that the sound in the dark is a monster, and it really is as bad as you think. Did that sound hopeless? It didn't feel hopeless. It felt reassuring. It felt - real.

Here's the secret to finishing that first book. Don't rewrite as you go.