For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have...

The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side.

The world is always changing brightness and hotness and soundness, I never know how it's going to be the next minute.

Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.

I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened.

Ma's still nodding. "You're the one who matters, though. Just you." I shake my head till it's wobbling because there's no just me.

It’s called mind over matter. If we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” When a bit of me hurts, I always mind.

Books are the air I breathe, so I don't notice the seasons.

If I was made of cake I'd eat myself before somebody else could.

I remember manners, that's when people are scared to make other persons mad.

When I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each ideas jumping into the other’s head, like coulouring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green.

The actors are the greatest executors of tone in a film. They're the most important cinematic component.

The best way to be thankful is to use the goods the gods provide you.

Until I can feel as ecstatic about having a baby as I felt about going to New Zealand to search for giant squid, I cannot have a baby.

Who is old enough to have learned from experience?

No witch has ever claimed to own the Elder Wand. Make of that what you will.

For what is delusion but the prelude to hurt. And what is hurt but the prelude to rage.

I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others; it's for others to use.

democracy produces both heroes and villains, but it differs from a fascist state in that it does not produce a hero who is a villain.

Movies tie things up in an arbitrary length of time, but I have always liked things that aren't fully realised.

It is far better to do the right thing wrong than to do the wrong thing right.