I've always liked the classic "young adult" writers like Mark Twain, Jack London, Roald Dahl, Charles Dickens. They write so clearly, and they know how to entertain.

I'm not very disciplined. I tend to write late at night because I get distracted during the day.

I'm just a dog person. I love dogs very much, especially big ones, hounds, and retrievers. I think they are funny and often have good senses of humor. Plus, they give unconditional love.

I have two dogs myself and they are always around when I write, so they tend to creep in there.

I like people who lead unusual lives, and very often a person with a disability fits into that category.

I wanted to do a collection where the narrator is constant throughout, so that there's a little unity.

I'm trying to write stories that are interesting and enjoyable.

I want the situations and plots to be surprising and unusual.

I know that some of the things which happen in these stories are not likely, but sometimes I wonder if they are not possible in some way.

I've found that I seek out oddballs; I like strange and eccentric people a lot.

Sometimes the autobiographical link in each story is very literal, like I did work at The Texas School for the Blind, and I did once lose a mattress out of the back of a friend's truck.

I hated the flashcards and I hated the multiplication tables, but I did enjoy the fact that my dad took time out of his schedule to help me in the areas in which I needed it.

I always just wanted to be funny. I never really planned to be scary.

When someone says, 'I love you,' he is telling you about himself, not you. When someone says, 'I hate you,' she is telling you about herself, not you. World views are self views-literally.

The final battle against intolerance is to be fought - not in the chambers of any legislature - but in the hearts of men.

You can not make yourself whole again by brooding one hundred percent of the time on the darkness of the world. We are the light of the world.

Some things we need to talk about, but not here. I'll see you later, darling." "No you won't, nut muffin!

Virginius Pass, go across the Talus slope and pick up the route through the notch, it is steep, slippery, brutal.

If you have no will to change it, you have no right to criticize it.

Everybody thinks himself so well supplied with common sense that even those most difficult to please. . . never desire more of it than they already have.

Sleep well and wake, Rand al'Thor.