I came from an anxious, overly intense East Coast academic family. That was the way of our tribe.

The problem with growing up is that once you're grown up, the people who aren't grown up aren't fun anymore.

There's a special gut-check moment the first time you write a scene in which somebody casts a spell.

About as close you can get to the perfect cerebral thriller: searingly smart, ridiculously funny, and fast as hell... I defy anybody to read the first page and not keep going to the last.

I feel very conscious of my influences. T.H. White is very important for me.

Don't take anyone's writing advice too seriously.

He who completes a quest does not merely find something. He becomes something.