Freedom of speech gives you the right to stay silent.

I think that the biggest, quickest and hardest thing to learn for a writer is that what we think of as the unchanging verities of story are a load of bollocks. Absolute rubbish. There are no unchanging verities.

People take on the shapes of the songs and the stories that surround them, especially if they don't have their own song.

Does it make you feel big to make a little boy cry?

I've learned over the years that everything is more or less the same amount of work, so you may as well set your sights high and try and do something really cool.

Black as night, sweet as sin.

They were kissing. Put like that, and you could be forgiven for presuming that this was a normal kiss, all lips and skin and possibly even a little tongue. You'd miss how he smiled, how his eyes glowed. And then, after the kiss was done, how he stood, like a man who had just discovered the art of standing and had figured out how to do it better than anyone else who would ever come along.