Mirrors,' she said, 'are never to be trusted.

I don't necessarily think stories have functions any more than diamonds have functions, or the sky has a function... Stories exist. They keep us sane, I think. We tell each other stories, we believe stories. I love watching the slow rise of the urban legend. They're the stories that we use to explain ourselves to ourselves.

Some things are too big to be seen; some emotions are too huge to be felt.

I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly.

I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled.

What I say is, a town isn't a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore it knows it's not fooling a soul.

Children's fiction is the most important fiction of all.