I have always felt that violence was the last refuge of the incompetent, and empty threats the last sanctuary of the terminally inept.

Bod quite liked crows. He thought they were funny and he liked the way they helped to keep the graveyard tidy.

They kissed for the first time then in the cold spring rain, though neither one of them now knew that it was raining. Tristran's heart pounded in his chest as if it was not big enough to contain all the joy that it held. He opened his eyes as he kissed the star. Her sky-blue eyes stared back into his, and in her eyes he could see no parting from her.

Of course you don't believe in fairies. You're fifteen. You think I believed in fairies at fifteen? Took me until I was at least a hundred and forty. Hundred and fifty, maybe. Anyway, he wasn't a fairy. He was a librarian. All right?

I suspect there are two kinds of novelists. Those who have a point of view and have something to say and then write a novel in order to say that thing, and those of us who write the book in order to find out what we think about that thing.

But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?

Biting's excellent. It's like kissing - only there is a winner.