When I meet children at book signings, they'll bring me photos of when I first met them many years ago when they were reading my picture books, and now they're telling me how much they enjoy my novels.

I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours.

I meet people at book signings. My record now, for signing, is ten and a half hours in one sitting.

The early readers are in-between books for the kids who aren't ready for novels yet but are done with my picture books. It's really rewarding to think that they can grow up reading my books at all the different levels.

My first book was poetry, but I didn't write it first. I wrote it third. So my first two books were prose.

Once you read a classic, you will start loving even the smell of the books.