If you're going to write something, that's going to be read by people, a lot of people, you hope it will not only entertain them but maybe do them some good in some way.

I think almost everybody enjoyed fairy tales when they were young, tales of witches and ogres and monsters and dragons and so forth. You get a little bit older, you can't read fairy tales any more.

My biggest regret is that I don't really have time to read.

No one has a perfect life. Everybody has something that he wishes was not the way it is.

I think people are interested in anything that's a little bigger than life and that's colorful and - you know, what they like? They like fairy tales for grownups.

The cliché I tried to avoid was I hated "teenage sidekicks." I always figured if I were a superhero, there's no way on God's earth that I'm gonna pal around with some teenager. So my publisher insisted I have a teenager in the series, because they always felt teenagers won't read the books unless there's a teenager in the story; which is nonsense.

I don't really see a need to retire as long as I am having fun.