For a human being, nothing comes naturally,' said Grumman. 'We have to learn everything we do.

Corruption and envy and lust for power. Cruelty and coldness. A vicious probing curiousity. Pure, poisonous, toxic malice. You have never from your earliest years shown a shred of compassion for sympathy or kindness without calculating how it would return to your advantage. You have tortured and killed without regret or hesitation; you have betrayed and intrigued and gloried in your treachery. You are a cess-pit of moral filth.

I practiced on the greatest model of storytelling we've got, which is "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." I told those stories many, many times.

Tell him, we are not devils but we have friends who are.

I don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God.... My books are about killing God.

Teachers often make the mistake of thinking they're the boss of the class; they're not. The boss of the class is sitting down there somewhere.

There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book.