If you can't eat it, drink it, smoke it, or snort it... then f*ck it!

The converse held reassuringly true: daylight was safe. Daylight was always safe.

If a Devil is one who dares, when others hold back, then I am happy to play the Devil in this Mystery, boy.

Making fiction for children, making books for children, isn't something you do for money. It's something you do because what children read and learn and see and take in changes them and forms them, and they make the future. They make the world we're going to wind up in, the world that will be here when we're gone. Which sounds preachy (and is more than you need for a quotebyte) but it's true. I want to tell kids important things, and I want them to love stories and love reading and love finding things out. I want them to be brave and wise. So I write for them.

The cat dropped the rat between its two front paws. "There are those," it said with a sigh, in tones as smooth as oiled silk, "who have suggested that the tendency of a cat to play with its prey is a merciful one - after all, it permits the occasional funny little running snack to escape, from time to time. How often does your dinner get to escape?

I love doing the readings. The readings are the fun bits... The readings are probably the things that actually keep me going on these. If I couldn't do the readings, I wouldn't do the [signing] tours. I get to stand up there and read to a bunch of adults who in many cases nobody's read to in years, since they were about five. They just squat on the floor. That's enormously enjoyable.

I started writing when I was about 20, 21 maybe.