I think 'The Lord Of The Rings' is the mother of all cult books, because you can be in that cult and not even know you're in it.

All my friends seem to be smart arses. Don't ask me why. Like many things, it is what it is.

It's my heart that is tired. A thirteen-year-old heart shouldn't feel like this.

The Gunman is useless. I know it. He knows it. The whole bank knows it.

I like to tell students, 'I didn't burst on to the literary scene.' I'm never good at things at the beginning. I was terrible at the start. I need to work and work.

I suppose he'll die soon. I'm expecting it, like you do for a dog that's seventeen. There's no way to know how I'll react. He'll have faced his own placid death and slipped without a sound inside himself. Mostly, I imagine I'll crouch there at the door, fall onto him, and cry hard into the stench of his fur. I'll wait for him to wake up, but he won't. I'll bury him. I'll carry him outside, feeling his warmth turn to cold as the horizon frays and falls down in my backyard. For now, though, he's okay. I can see him breathing. He just smells like he's dead.

It would then be brought abruptly to an end, for the brightness had shown suffering the way.