That’s what death did, it treated you like a child, like everything you had ever thought and done and cared about was just a child’s game, to be crumpled up and thrown away when it was over. It didn’t matter. Death didn’t respect you. Death thought you were bullshit, and it wanted to make sure you knew it.

I always hated those fantasy books where, at the end, all the kids had to go home. At the end of a Narnia book, you always got shown the door. Same with The Wizard Of Oz and The Phantom Tollbooth. You get kicked out of your magic land. It's like, "By the way, here's your next surprise: You get to go home!" And the kids are all like, "Yay, we get to go home!" I never bought that. Did anybody buy that?

It's a terrible thing for a book, when you feel like you're supposed to like it.

Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else.

Being brave was easy when you would rather die than give up.

I used to write in a local coffee shop, but there was another guy, another writer, who kept sitting in my favorite seat. I would show up, and he would be there, and I would get exiled to a couch or something, and it would throw me off my game.

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