Quotes from Catherine Jinks

I was always told you're not going to make much money from writing. You can actually do it. Now I've built a really good, big house out of words.

I'm not a risk-taker; that's probably why I write - because when you're easily bored, but you don't like taking risks, you end up doing it all in your head.

In primary school, I was bored witless by Australian history.

The fact that I ended up married to a decent man is still a source of amazement to me, thanks to 'The Women's Room.'

I'm a very nervy kind of person, who finds it almost impossible to relax.

I was lucky enough to be a child during the renaissance of Australian children's literature, when people like Ivan Southall, Colin Thiele, Lilith Norman and Wrightson were pumping out hugely inspiring stuff.

I write books for all age groups - young kids, teenagers and adults - because I get a range of different ideas.

What ever you do-Don't get caught.

Right he said Let's get one thing clear. I am not here to teach you law-I am here to teach you loopholes.

I'm a hacker! Cadel protested. I don't poison people! I don't blow them up!

When someone's rattling on about blocked toilets, collapsing marquees, and penis-shaped birthday cakes, it's hard to convince yourself that you're in a life-or-death situation.

Only because books are better than people, Father. ... Because they are masters who instruct without a rod. If you approach them, they are never asleep; if you are ignorant, they never laugh; if you make mistakes, they never chide. They give to all who ask of them, and never demand payment. ... All the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, if God hadn't provided us with the remedy of books.

I mean who the hell do you think you are, exactly? Saint Roland of the Perpetual Martyrdom?

Horace, however, had arrayed himself in a Gothic assortment of crushed velvet, black satin, and patent leather that shouldn't have been allowed in my view. He might as well have I AM A VAMPIRE embroidered across the front of his watered-silk waistcoat. An outfit like that is going to get him staked one of these days; it's exactly what Boris Karloff would have worn, if he had joined the cast of Rocky Horror Motion Picture Show.

Why look to far ahead, when there was nothing to see but dark clouds?

If it hadn't been for Prosper, he might never have learned how to love at all. Because the ability to become attached to people was something that you had to exercise at an early age, if you didn't want to lose it altogether.

My lord-' (Pagan) 'I just want you to be happy. Safe and happy' (Roland) 'My lord, I'm safe and happy with you.' In God's name, Roland, why do you even ask? 'Where you go, I will go.

How I long to feel the weight of a book in my hand. How I long to turn a page, and pass through the print as you'd pass through a door, into that world of wise and lofty spirits, of strange animals, of noble deeds and faraway cities. If only I could crawl into a book and stay there for the rest of my life.

Three months before Cadel's eleventh birthday, his French teacher left the classroom, briefly, to answer an urgent phone call. When she returned, she found the entire class in an uproar with everyone fighting and shouting - except Cadel. He satin the midst of this chaos, quietly finishing the exercise she had set for all of them.

Mostly I wanted to be a writer, though for a couple of years there I wanted to be an animator, because I loved drawing and capturing beautiful movements.

I always had a soft spot for Sherlock Holmes and used to imagine helping him out.

When you're a dweeb, when you're really young, it stands out. But as everybody gets older and more conservative, it's not an issue any more.

There's nothing quite as exciting or moving as the very finest literary non-fiction.