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

It's wonderful to play around with fantasy, because there are an amazing number of as-yet-unbroken rules out there.

The truth doesn't always make a good story, does it?

In our world no one ever knows what to do, and everyone's just as clueless and full of crap as everyone else, and you have to figure it all out by yourself. And even after you've figured it out and done it, you'll never know whether you were right or wrong. You'll never know if you put the ring in the right volcano, or if things might have gone better if you hadn't.

I have spent many, many hours reading J.K. Rowling's work. I am a known 'Harry Potter' fan.

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

She tortured everybody around her, but only because she was more tortured than anyone.