It's because I'm a feminist that I can't stand women limiting other women's imaginations. It really makes me angry.

I acquired a hunger for fairy tales in the dark days of blackout and blitz in the Second World War.

What literature can and should do is change the people who teach the people who don't read the books.

No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.

Art does not exist for politics, or for instruction- it exists primarily for pleasure, or it is nothing.

Things are not what they seem.

I think the names of colors are at the edge, between where language fails and where it's at its most powerful.

I worry about anthropomorphism as a form of self-deception. (The Christian religion is an anthropomorphic account of the universe.)

Narration is as much a part of human nature as breath and the circulation of the blood.

I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is.

He felt changed, but there was no one to tell.

Hesitation and the fear of being judged kills more relationships than misunderstanding and arguments.

Janice used to say that instinct was reason in a hurry; I was not so sure about the reason part.

A writer's job is to cultivate what can go wrong. You're always looking for that dramatic arc of where things can fail.

The history of the past interests us only in so far as it illuminates the history of the present.

We don’t come out of the womb filled with prejudice, racism, and homophobia. Kids are taught to hate, so we have to protect our young people’s minds from those evils.

The aim of every human being is to understand the meaning of total love.

I read a lot of different stuff, but I keep being open to inspiration.

I couldn’t help it,” I said, knowing how lame that sounded. It was as bad as Angeline’s “it’s not my fault” mantra.

I haven't really done a lot of comedies. I don't know why, because I really like them

How can you think and hit at the same time?