“The first lesson I would learn about love is that it is filled with disappointment. The second thing I would learn is that the search for a cure almost invariably ends up being self-destructive.”

“Even in teen movies like Pretty in Pink or Sixteen Candles, I always cringed a little when the unpopular girl finally got the hot, popular guy she'd been pining for. What on earth would they talk about after the credits rolled? I didn't want reality. I preferred the safety of fantasy.”

“While writing the first draft is an exercise in shutting down all of the things we think we know so that the story features come tumbling out, the revision is the end of the joy ride. We pull on the gloves and sort of poke around inside the body. Is that a tumor? Will that limb need amputation? I nearly second-guessed myself into heart failure while learning to self-edit.”

“I just tried to put myself in her place and figure out what would be the scariest thing. If I thought I might be dying. And it was being alone' ... 'To me,' she said, 'the scariest thing is oblivion. Being, and then not being.”

“It is one of those lessons that every child should learn: Don't play with fire, sharp objects, or ancient artifacts.”

“I told them," he said in a clear, carrying voice, "that they should not give someone as old and powerful as I a daughter to love. That it would end badly.”

“Leslie had learned two valuable things about the fae that day. They were powerful and charming -- and they ate children and puppies.”