The boy had the towering arrogance only seen in the greatest of artists and all nine-year-old boys.

I still love the book-ness of books, the smell of books: I am a book fetishist—books to me are the coolest and sexiest and most wonderful things there are.

Have you ever spent days and days and days making up flavors of ice cream that no one's ever eaten before? Like chicken and telepone ice cream? Green mouse ice cream was the worst. I didn't like that at all.

I sat in the dark and thought: There’s no big apocalypse. Just an endless procession of little ones.

I was a stranger and you took me in. -Joji G. Shoji, d. 1921

A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick -- a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.

Can't make an omelette without killing a few people.