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.

Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them.

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

I learned to write by writing.

When I started out, there were a lot of things I knew I couldn't do, and a lot of things I only found out I couldn't do by going and doing it. And no-one was watching, and nobody cared.

It's only a world, after all, and they're just sand grains in the desert, worlds.

There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.