It would be the death of all creativity for me if I had to sit there and be concerned with the sensibilities of a fourteen-year-old kid. Some fourteen-year-olds would revel in the book, and some would be very sensitive to it, so you can't afford to worry about that. What I worry about is good taste and getting my message across by whatever means I can.

Don't miss the bus, boy. You're missing a lot of things in the world, better not miss that bus.

You could reason with someone who was halfway educated and appeal to his intelligence, but I felt helpless in the face of utter stupidity.

They don't actually want you to do your own thing, not unless it's their thing too.

When people say they write for themselves, that's probably what they do. I will admit that I don't write for myself; I write to be read. I've got the reader in my mind all the time.

A writer must take risks, defy the odds, be a bit obsessed and a little mad.

Cities fell. Earth opened. Planets tilted. Stars plummeted. And the awful silence.