How do you say 'bring me sausage and eggs or I'll slit your throat' in Italian?" "Look it up in the phrase book.

There are billions of men in the world, probably millions near my age. Maybe hundreds who are compatible with me. Maybe at least a dozen who would want to date me. There's got to be at least five on the continent whom I could probably marry. So why am I so hung up on this one guy?

It was Night. In most places, Night is a time for sleep, for calm, and for mystery. But not in New York City, where many things conspired every evening to murder the night.

Oh, but a real princess would know that hard work ennobles the soul,' Rose objected. 'That would be one of the signs.

You're drinking in the joy of life,' Bear told her when she tried to explain why she was laughing. 'There's so much opportunity for drinking deeply of it, and we very rarely do it. When you do, it makes you feel alive all over.

Hello again, violinist,' he said in a hoarse voice. 'Fancy meeting you here.

One of my heroes, G.K. Chesterton, said, "The old fairy tales endure forever. The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal." Discovering that the modern world can still contain the wonder and strangeness of a fairy tale is part of what my novels are about.