Cigars should be like onions," she said, unfastening the catch and pushing back the pane. "Either the whole company does, or the whole company does not.

The story is always better than your ability to write it. My belief about this is that if you ever get to the point that you think you've done a story justice, you're in the wrong business.

When they finished laughing they were on their way to being not just friends, but the dearest of friends, the sort of friends whose lives are shaped by the friendship.

Because she was a princess she had a pegasus.

The story is always better than your ability to write it.

I advise those who want to become writers to study veterinary medicine, which is easier. You don't want to be a writer unless you have no choice - and if you have no choice, good luck to you.

There are things you don't want to know you can do

My capacity for invention is flash hot stark, I thought. Sucker sunshade. Disembodied radar-reconnaissance. Not to mention Bitter Chocolate Death and Killer Zebras. Pity about the rest of me.

Perhaps it is a human thing, to look upon such beauty and fail to encompass it.

[Harry] had always suffered from a vague restlessness, a longing for adventure that she told herself severely was the result of reading too many novels when she was a small child.

It is a much more straightforward thing to be a dog, and a dog's love, once given, is not reconsidered.

Darkness crept through. Shadows pried at doors, teased dull edges of recollections that never quite took hold. Memories that would have shriveled under the blinding sun of daylight. And reason.

Government is there to do only what the private sector won’t, can’t, or shouldn’t do.

My strength is translating emotion because I'm such a feeler.

Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms.

To achieve what you want, you have to be stronger than those around you

I dedicated myself to the game and never disrespected it.

I'm always working on concepts and ideas for the future.

In good writing, words become one with things.

To fight the raven you may make alliance with the serpent until the battle is done.