If you are a conscious human being who has opinions about the world, then you will unconsciously put your own perspective into the book.

I'd been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated.

Every snapshot collector has obsessions. Some only collect photos of cars. Others like World War II, or babies, or old-timey girls in old-timey swimsuits. I happen to collect the weird stuff: photos that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up a little. The uncanny.

When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking.

I had been writing since I was pretty small, and I've always been telling these stories about doors and finding other worlds within our own.

There was romance in the unknown, but once a place had been discovered and cataloged and mapped, it was diminished, just another dusty fact in a book, sapped of mystery. So maybe it was better to leave a few spots on the map blank. To let the world keep a little of its magic, rather than forcing it to divulge every last secret. Maybe it was better, now and then, to wonder.

I'm no expert on girls, but when one tries to pinch you four times, I'm pretty sure that's flirting