You don't know me yet," I said. "Rory was telling me she lives in a swamp," Charlotte said. "That's right," I said, turning up my accent a little. "These are the very first shoes I've ever owned. They sure do pinch my feet." Jerome gave a little snort.

The kids I talk to are readers, and the craziest, the most dedicated readers you will ever see.

I've heard people on panels say, 'You must have a Web site. You need to tweet. Repeat the title of your book constantly,' and I just want to say, 'Shut up. Everything you're saying is wrong.' People will know instantly if your only motivation for tweeting is to sell books.

Spicy food and I have a close relationship—an obsessive one, in fact. If it’s spicy, I want it. I want to sweat and shake and go half blind from the searing pain . . . which, now that I put it that way, seems really suggestive. But spicy stuff is addictive. That’s a known fact of science.

I like you because you were mad. And you're pretty. And pretty sane for a mad person.

Money is for doing things, my love. Don't sit on it like a hen sits on an egg. It doesn't hatch. I should know. I've made enough of it.

I looked at the stained-glass image of the lamb in the window above me, but that only reminded me that lambs are famous for being led to slaughter, or sometimes hanging out with lions in ill-advised relationships.