When I am grappling with ideas which are radical enough to upset grown-ups, then I am likely to put these ideas into a story which will be marketed for children, because children understand what their parents have rejected and forgotten.

We turn to stories and pictures and music because they show us who and what and why we are.

If we are not willing to fail we will never accomplish anything. All creative acts involve the risk of failure.

The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument.

I am also four, and twelve, and fifteen, and twenty-three, and thirty-one, and forty-five and . . . and . . . and . . .

Stories have a richness that goes way beyond fact. My writing knows more than I know. What a writer must do is listen to her book. It might take you where you don't expect to go.

There was no light. The darkness was deep and there was no dazzle.