We have reached the point where ignorance and neglect are the best we can hope for in a ruler.

Being a writer can be isolating. It's good to be among readers and booksellers.

The process of learning is a nonstop orgy of wonderment.

More than fantasy or even science fiction, Ray Bradbury wrote horror, and like so many great horror writers he was himself utterly without fear, of anything. He wasn't afraid of looking uncool - he wasn't scared to openly love innocence, or to be optimistic, or to write sentimentally when he felt that way.

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

It's natural for a child to assume that his or her own childhood is unremarkable.

As a teenager in Brooklyn Quentin had often imagined himself engaged in martial heroics, but after this he knew, as a cold immutable fact, that he would do anything necessary, sacrificing whatever or whomever he had to, to avoid risking exposure to physical violence. Shame never came into it. He embraced his new identity as a coward. He would run in the other direction. He would lie down and cry and put his arms over his head or play dead. It didn't matter what he had to do, he would do it and be glad.