You must never feel badly about making mistakes.

When you're very young and you learn something - a fact, a piece of information, whatever - it doesn't connect to anything.

For instance," said the boy again, "if Christmas trees were people and people were Christmas trees, we'd all be chopped down, put up in the living room, and covered in tinsel, while the trees opened our presents." "What does that have to do with it?" asked Milo. "Nothing at all," he answered, "but it's an interesting possibility, don't you think?

People always ask about my influences, and they cite a bunch of people I've never heard of

Whether or not you find your own way, you're bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it's quite rusty.

And when I'm writing, I write a lot anyway. I might write pages and pages of conversation between characters that don't necessarily end up in the book, or in the story I'm working on, because they're simply my way of getting to know the characters

Perhaps you'd care for a synonym bun," suggested the duke.