Once you fall into habits, I think, you're dead as an artist. You have to challenge yourself and never rest on your laurels, never think about what you've done in the past.

I try not to become too regular an addict of any one subculture.

I never take any notes or draw charts or make elaborate diagrams, but I hold an image of the shape of a book in my head and work from that mental hologram.

I've never related to the work geek at all-it sounds much more horrible than nerd. Like a freak biting a chicken's head off in a sideshow.

I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me.

Someday I would change my name to Shut Up and save everybody a lot of time.

I work on a laptop specifically so I can work in cafes and pretend I'm part of the human world.

What age is a black boy when he learns he's scary?

It was only as I wrote about fear that I began to find paths of access to feelings that were intolerable to me then.

I want what we all want," said Carl. "To move certain parts of the interior of myself into the exterior world, to see if they can be embraced.

I can't bear the silent ringing in my skull.

Acts of love, for me, are leaps of bravery.

He was feeling buoyant, flexible. He wanted to go jogging. He stood. He couldn't go jogging. He called room service and ordered a basket of breads and pastries.

The Federal role in overcoming barriers to needed health care should emphasize health care financing programs-such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Scientists say that Texas and Antarctica were connected at one time. In fact, early Mexicans used to go through Texas to try to sneak into Antarctica.

We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks - water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land - and not by generating renewable flows.

The greatest gift that one human being can give another is unconditional love. It's the only thing, ultimately, that really matters.

The children's book world has given me wonderful friendships and an unbelievably rich life.

Who you are authentically is alright.

Religion belongs to the realm that is inviolable before the law of causation and therefore closed to science.

We forget ourselves and our destinies in health, and the chief use of temporary sickness is to remind us of these concerns.