Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize...

You can only chase a butterfly for so long.

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...

Because though women lie when they have to and men lie all the time, the mirror always tells the truth.

In fiction, the characters have their own lives. They may start as a gloss on the author’s life, but they move on from there. In poetry, especially confessional poetry but in other poetry as well,...

A good story is [a] kind of irritant. You read it, then you cannot stop thinking about it. Eventually, your mind and heart encyst about it, and what occurs is a pearl of the soul.

Well,’ the Goddess said, ‘your heart didn’t heal straight the last time it broke. So we’ll break it again and reset it so it heals straight this time.

I contend that good children’s stories are always about the Getting of Wisdom. That’s another way of saying, “Let your characters grow. Up.” And good stories for adults are about the Holding of Wisdom. Another...

The tales of Elfland do not stand or fall on their actuality but on their truthfulness, their speaking to the human condition, the longings we all have for the Faerie Other.

Ah—now you think I have been lying to you, that this is only a story. It has a king in it. And while a story with Death might be true, a story with a king...

Do not expect too much from your child and she will grow in your love… But if you push her too much, you will push her away. A child is not yours to own but...

Fairy Tales always have a happy ending.’ That depends… on whether you are Rumpelstiltskin or the Queen.

You’ve got some power,” Jakkin said. “One hug—and the lights go out!

They [Fairy Tales] are talking about real emotions, telling true stories, through the medium of metaphor. People used to understand metaphor better than I think we do now. But these stories are so potent, they...

Literature is a textually transmitted disease, normally contracted in childhood.

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

Love the writing, love the writing, love the writing… the rest will follow.

You are a name, not a number. Never forget that name, whatever they tell you here. You will always be Chaya—life—to me.

Part of her revolted against the insanity of the rules. Part of her was grateful. In a world of chaos, any guidelines helped. And she knew that each day she remained alive, she remained alive....

Touch magic. Pass it on.

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...

Fiction cannot recite the numbing numbers, but it can be that witness, that memory. A storyteller can attempt to tell the human tale, can make a galaxy out of the chaos, can point to the...

Their lips were too thin to ask forgiveness, and their minds too mean to understand love.