Even the proudest spirit can be broken with love.

As for thinking time versus writing time, well, that's up to you. But - and I wish it were otherwise - books don't get written by thinking about them, they get written by writing them. And that's when you make discoveries about what you're writing. That's when you get the happy accidents.

You can't run away from home without destroying somebody's world.

Well meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading - do not discourage children from reading because you feel they're reading the wrong thing. There is no such thing as the wrong thing to be reading and no bad fiction for kids.

Virginia is the place, where, technologically speaking, they will burn people at the stake for possessing such things as toasters.

You know I love you,' said the other mother flatly. 'You have a very funny way of showing it,' said Coraline.

Once, I was a poet, and, like all poets, I spent too long in the Kingdom of Dreams.