The advantage of horror books is to take the reader and cut him out of the pack and work on him one on one. It has its advantages because the people that are there in the movie theater really are a mob. If you get one guy alone you can do a more efficient job of scaring him.

Mrs. Cole was a perfect democrat. She hated all kids equally.

The redness was going out of the light now, the remains of the day were a fading pink, the color of wild roses.

But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.

Things come in three major degrees in the human experience, I think. There's good, bad, and terrible. And as you go down into progressive darkness towards terrible, it gets harder and harder to make subdivisions.

The quiet, singing voice of the rose. The song that promised all might be well, all might be well, that all manner of things might be well.

No good friends, no bad friends; only people you want, need to be with. People who build their houses in your heart.