I'm the Beast. You're the Beauty," he said. "It's all a story, isn't it?

Every writer has to find their own way into writing.

People can say what they like about the eternal verities, love and truth and so on, but nothing's as eternal as the dishes.

New Zealand is the only country I know well enough to write about. It can sometimes lead to complications.

I don't want to die, really. I'm interested in what happens next, so I've got to keep on.

When you are reading, someone has done a lot of work on your behalf, someone has had ideas and has then written and corrected and improved them so that they can be shared.

By the time ordinary life asserted itself once more, I would feel I had already lived for a while in some other lifetime, that I had even taken over someone else's life.

Will you still love me when I'm a monster?

At this stage I am not involved with young adults as closely as many other writers. My children are grown up and my grandchildren are still quite young.

I've never actually been a fighter myself - fighting tires me out and I'm not an efficient fighter anyway - but I have certainly seen other people have great complicated goes at one another.

I hope I am not too repetitive. However, coming to terms with death is part of the general human situation.

The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted, Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.

She walks, on the streets, with a face that, doesn't belong.It smiles more than, many put together, whole day long.Her heart misfit, a little chipped.And she likes to, call it once broken, but now stitched.

Parents were the only ones obligated to love you; from the rest of the world you had to earn it.

The water in L.A. tastes like bleach. I literally have to make my tea with Evian water.

It's 4:30 in the morning, it's always 4:30 in the morning.

Fatherhood is great because you can ruin someone from scratch.

You can't save people from themselves. You can only try to wake them up.

And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be?

You have to be very careful about what you say. More importantly, you have to be very careful about what you do. You never know how or when you influence people – especially children.