I wanted to explore cancer not just biologically, but metaphorically. The idea that tuberculosis in the 19th century possessed the same kind of frightening and decaying quality was very interesting to me, and it seemed that one could explore the idea...
I always managed to get in trouble, like every kid. But I had to learn a lot of hard lessons on my own, without parents who would nurture me and guard me through that part of life, at a very young age.
My first seven novels were contemporary spiritual novels, my next nine had strong elements of fantasy, and now I'm writing thrillers, more as a choice to spread my wings than anything. Writers, like good wine, should mature with age.
Afghanistan does have an air force: It has two C-130s. I saw one of them. It was nice, a gift from the United States. But two planes don't even make a Caribbean charter airline, let alone an air force for a country at war.
My husband, Andrew Shue, is the co-founder of Do Something, and we both speak and present at awards ceremonies. It's absolutely amazing and humbling to see all the work so many young people are contributing to better their communities on both a local...
I will remember the night I won the New Comedy Awards, as I was young and unformed, so that sticks in the mind. I've also done a fantastic gig at the Royal Albert Hall, which was amazing. Appearing in the Christopher Guest film was also a real highli...
In the 'Garnethill' trilogy, people always forget that Maureen O'Donnell's dad was a journalist and she did art history at uni and her brother did law, but no-one ever thinks they're middle-class - they're just working class because they speak with a...
I don't feel like literature has the power to alienate. I think that's something people feel if they don't connect with a work of art. But I don't think a work of art can actively reject the person who's looking at it or reading it.
Middle grade fiction, to me, is really about emergence of self. It's about expressing the idea that the world is going to start affecting you more, and your parents' influence is going to wane. Middle grade is when a lot of kids discover their passio...
Artistic qualities that once seemed undeniable don't seem so now. Sometimes these fluctuations are only fickleness of taste, momentary glitches in an artist's work, or an artist getting ahead of his audience (it took me ten years to catch up to Alber...
There are plenty of writers, past and present, from Shakespeare to Henry James to Lydia Davis, who test the limits of coherence and put pressure on current notions of accessible (and acceptable) narrative methods. To thrive and change and grow, any a...
Books of silver; books of bone; and yet the strangest thing you see in all your years at Galvanic is a boy in a ski-mask, sitting in a basement, using a computer.
The heart of animals is the foundation of their life, the sovereign of everything within them, the sun of their microcosm, that upon which all growth depends, from which all power proceeds.
You believe in Destiny, don't you?" "Yes," said Leah quietly. "Then you have to believe that things happen for a reason, and even if you change something. Destiny will find a way to fulfill her needs." - Jasmine
Devon had been so lonely, so terribly lonely, for so long. The kind of lonely that sears, that burrows its way deep inside a heart and throbs. Like a gnawing hunger.
It was as if his fingers knew things, but they couldn't show him unless they were moving, touching. He had to think it was similar for carpenters and writers, and he knew it was the same for chefs.
Hope erodes slowly, over time, until you wake up one night at three o'clock in the morning and realize: I am not meant for that kind of thing.
The last introvert in a world of extroverts. Silence: my response to both emptiness and saturation. But silence frightens people. I had to learn how to talk. Out of politeness.
I want you. I want you so badly I can’t stand it. When you left, it felt like the world got darker. Like I couldn’t truly see anything. Couldn’t feel anything.
Let's just call it like it is, no need to pretty it up. I care what other people think of me. I'm not Jesus Christ. I'm just a girl in the world.
I mean if there was any justice in the world you wouldn't even have to go to school during your period. You'd just stay home for five days and eat chocolate and cry.
