You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.

If anyone ever asks you what panic is, now you can tell them: an emotional blank spot that leaves you feeling as if you've been sucking on a mouthful of pennies.

...belief has a second edge. If there are ten thousand medieval peasants who create vampires by believing them real, there may be one - probably a child - who will imagine the stake necessary to kill it. But a stake is only stupid wood; the mind is the mallet which drives it home.

I had a period where I thought I might not be good enough to publish.

Don't ask me silly questions I won't play silly games I'm just a simple choo choo train And I'll always be the same. I only want to race along Beneath the bright blue sky And be a happy choo choo train Until the day I die.

Successful rebellions always begin in secret.

I spend a lot of time parenting because I'm home. A friend of mine told me that the average father sees each kid an average of twenty-two minutes a week, which I found almost unbelievable. Mine are in my hip pocket all the time. And I like it that way.