[D]on't ever apologize to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologize to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read.

I like horror, but I tend to like it as seasoning. I'd get very bored if I was told I had to write a horror novel. I'd love to write a novel with horror elements, but too much, and it doesn't taste of anything else.

She smiled at Coraline, as if it had been a very long time since she had smiled and she had almost, but not quite, forgotten how.

Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.

You could fire a machine gun randomly through the pages of Lord of the Rings and never hit any women.

The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.