So I grew up in a very book-friendly environment and my education as a writer was reading. I think that's the best education. Reading, and taking from the people I admired.

I want to be judged harshly because that forces me to really sit down and focus.

Thank you, sir, but I am perfectly content being the bride of death.

It's absurd to think of 'Pride and Prejudice,' this classic, beloved book, beset with a zombie uprising. The goal is to make you suspend your disbelief enough to allow you to get lost in the story and believe what you're reading for a while.

So I grew up in a very book-friendly environment and my education as a writer was reading. I think that's the best education. Reading, and taking from the people I admired.

I nearly broke out laughing when the wrteched soothsayer warned Caesar: "Beware the Ides of April." I thought it a miracle (and a relief) that no one in the udience had snickered or yelled out a correction. How could such an error be made by an actor? Had my ears deceived me?

It was a sort of peace I have rarely enjoyed since. As if we were the only two souls on earth—all of nature ours to enjoy. I wondered why a creator who had dreamt such beauty would have slandered it with such evil. Such grief. Why He had not been content to leave it unspoilt. I still wonder.