My parents believe in the principle of ‘sink or swim,’ or ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger ― or it kills you.” From “The Education of Robert Nifkin

I imagine a child. That child is me. I can reconstruct and vividly remember portions of my own childhood. I can see, taste, smell, feel, and hear them. Then what I do is, not write about that kid or about his world, but start to think of a book that would have pleased him.

I'd always liked to write, but I never wanted to be a writer, because it seemed a sissy occupation. It is. To this day, I find it terribly easy. And so, rather than trying to hunt up a text, I just wrote one.

Trust me, there is no formula for most things that are not math.

Werewolves are much more common animals than you might think.

Children make better readers than adults. They read as carefully as I write adults read as a means of getting off to sleep. I get letters saying 'I have read your book seventeen times.' If you're an adult novelist and you get that letter, you should be afraid. You're being stalked. Kids always read them seventeen times!

Read a lot. Write a lot. Have fun.

I've said this before, and I say it again. Bagels can be an enormous power for good or for evil. It is up to us to decide how we will use them.

The old saw about old dogs and new tricks only applies to certain people.

It doesn't matter who you are, or what you've done, or think you can do. There's a confrontation with destiny awaiting you. Somewhere, there is a chile you cannot eat.

I sort of always like to write starting with when I learned how.

Some women have said, 'Gee, here I am getting involved with this fat guy, what will people think of me?' But they were converted and sometimes surprised.

Writing and telling are almost the same, the way I do it.

Today is the yesterday you won't remember tomorrow.

Chickens have an uncanny sense of direction.

I believe it is impossible to make sense of life in this world except through art.