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.

We all float down here!

Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.

...maybe the world needs a cadre of smartasses to liven things up, who knows?

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.

The past is obdurate. It doesn't want to change.

I was being paid to do what I loved, and there's no gig on earth better than that; it's like a license to steal.