What amazes me is that most days feel useless. I don't seem to accomplish anything-just a few pages, most of which don't seem very good. Yet, when I put all those wasted days together, I somehow end up with a book of which I'm very proud.

We may be surrounded by some greater reality, to which we are oblivious. And even if we could somehow perceive it in some entirely new way, it is extremely doubtful we would be able to comprehend what we perceived.

Not counting Small Steps, I think Holes is my best book, in terms of plot, and setting, and the way the story revealed itself. It hasn’t changed my life, other than that I have more money than I did before I wrote it. I’m still too close to Small Steps to compare it to Holes.

It's – I write the books and let the market find who reads it. I guess a young adult is anywhere from ten to fifteen.

An idea doesn't die," said Trapp. "It exists somewhere, in its own dimension, waiting to be perceived.

There was something special about being in a strange place, all alone in a mass of people even if you had just screwed up your life, or perhaps especially if you had just screwed up your life.

In a way, it made him sad. He couldn't help but think that a hundred times zero was still nothing.