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.

Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world.

I'd like to take a motorcycle trip across Europe, maybe even across China. Of course I'd also like to broker a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but it's important to put ceilings on one's ambitions.

The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge.

Everything that goes around comes around, they say, and although I've never been able to figure out who the mysteriously wise sages known as "they" might be, they're certainly right when it comes to time-travel.

Take the dead from the dead, the old proverb said; only a corpse may speak true prophecy.

Even the company of the mad was better than the company of the dead.