On the subject of love at first sight, I’m with the Beatles: I believe that it happens all the time.

Outside, a gusty October breeze was combing leaves from the trees and sending them across her backyard in colorful skitters.

The first is that good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style) and then filling the third level of your toolbox with the right instruments. The second is that while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one

Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.

There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good stories seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky.

I've met talespinners before, Jake, and they're all cut more or less from the same cloth. They tell tales because they're afraid of life.

Little kids' minds are very, very strong. They bend. There's a lot of tensile strength and they don't break. We start our kids off on things like "Hansel and Gretel," which features child abandonment, kidnapping, attempted murder, forcible detention, cannibalism, and finally murder by cremation. And the kids love it.