“She closed her eyes and began to weave a song. She abandoned the familiar melodies shed played so many times before and went in search of something new, no longer wanting a song fed on pain or guil...”

“She chased the song like a hound fast upon a scent. She pursued it through a forest primeval: a dark land planted with musical staves and rests and grown thick with briars of annotation. On she wen...”

“And then she caught the song. She fell upon it and music poured from the fiddles hollow, bright and liquid like fire out of the heart of the earth. Pierre-Jean drew back and stood mesmerized. The r...”

“Then she took up the bow and began to play. The tone was warm and deep, storied with layers of age.”

“These times of war and ruin will pass, and by love, you will be renewed and all terrible things shall be undone. Do you hear me, Fin Button? Jeannot pushed the hair from her face and though shaking...”

“She dove, plunging fully beneath the surface and came up again in tears. Rivulets ran from her face, and the sun ignited them each, transforming them, even amid her sorrow, into gilded runnels set ...”

“I'm no longer a child and I still want to be, to live with the pirates. Because I want to live forever in wonder. The difference between me as a child and me as an adult is this and only this: when...”

“They say there are three kinds of people in the world: those who listen to stories, those who tell them, and those who make them.”

“Well, if pirates are bad,And vampires are worse,Then I pray that as long as I beThat though I sing of VampiratesI never one shall see.Yea, if pirates are dangerAnd vampires are death,I'll extend my...”

“He wanted to heat up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt.”

“Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Sh...”

“Tell the story as if it were only of interest to the small circle of your characters, of which you may be one. There is no other way to put life into the story.”

“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.”