I’m the thing you most desire, you represent the thing I least desire, death. It’s just the opposite of love.

When I finished [writing it], I was crying. I knew at long last, after ten years of trying, I had written something good.

You've got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

Day, after day, after glorious day, I was falling in love with books.

Science-fiction balances you on the cliff. Fantasy shoves you off.

I’m ALIVE. Thinking about it, noticing it, is new. You do things and don’t watch. Then all of a sudden you look and see what you’re doing and it’s the first time, really.