“As we watched the soldiers and the Rambo disappear I remember feeling preternaturally calm. This is what deep, deep fear does to you. It turns you into a state of unfeeling.”

“Dreams are nervy thingsall it takes is for one stern word to be spoken in their direction and they shrivel up and die. ”

“A Prayer was like a tickle.Sooner or later God would have to look down to see what was tickling his bum.”

“Now listen. Faith is like oxygen. It keeps you afloat at all times. Sometimes you need it. Sometimes you dont. but when you do need it you better be practiced at having faith, otherwise it wont wor...”

“For six days I didnt get up except to make a cup of tea, or fry an egg, or lie in the skinny bath gazing at a cracked ceiling. The days punished me with their slowness, piling up the hours on me, s...”

“I had found a new friend. The surprising thing is where Id found him not up a tree or sulking in the shade, or splashing around in one of the hill streams, but in a book. No one had told us kids t...”

“Tell the story that's been growing in your heart, the characters you can't keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that wakes y...”

“I write for the kid in me. . . . Often when Im working on a story, Ill find myself laughing at something my characters have done, or even being surprised at where theyve taken the story. Its as if ...”

“If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.”