“What makes a good book? Scholars and critics have been debating that question for decades. I like books that touch my head and my heart at the same time.”

“JANE: What to do when it is that time in your girl child's life:1. Sit down calmly and explain sex to her?2. Buy her a book, video, or CD that gives her the details?3. Buy her condoms and put her on the pill?Or do as many mothers before you did—just stick your head in the sand and hope she joins a convent.Of course these days your child may know more about sex than you did at her age, what with in-school health lessons, and out-of-school R-rated movies easily accessed on the TV, not to mention the Starr Report!In the days of fairy tales, sex was dangerous because so many women died in childbirth. Today sex is again dangerous because of diseases like AIDS. So what do we say?”

“A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old.”

“A child who can love the oddities of a fantasy book cannot possibly be xenophobic as an adult. What is a different color, a different culture, a different tongue for a child who has already mastered Elvish, respected Puddleglums, or fallen under the spell of dark-skinned Ged?”

“And for adults, the world of fantasy books returns to us the great words of power which, in order to be tamed, we have excised from our adult vocabularies. These words are the pornography of innocence, words which adults no longer use with other adults, and so we laugh at them and consign them to the nursery, fear masking as cynicism. These are the words that were forged in the earth, air, fire, and water of human existence, and the words are:Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Courage. Honor. Truth.”

“I have always been jealous of artists. The smell of the studio, the names of the various tools, the look of a half-finished canvas all shout of creation. What do writers have in comparison? Only the flat paper, the clacketing of the typewriter or the scrape of a pen across a yellow page. And then, when the finished piece is presented, there is a small wonder on one hand, a manuscript smudged with erasures or crossed out lines on the other. The impact of the painting is immediate, the manuscript must unfold slowly through time.”

“1. Write every day2. Write what interests you.3. Write for the child inside of you. (Or the adult, if you are writing adult books.)4. Write with honest emotion5. Be careful of being facile6. Be wary of preaching7. Be prepared for serendipityFinally I would remind you of something that Churchill told a group of school boys: "Never give up. Never give up. Never, never, never give up.”