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" We are still vulnerable to gender-targeted marketing no matter how carefully we edit our children's bookshelves. "

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" Ah, the intractable Canadian problem: Winter and finery are basically incompatible. "

" A song is a short composition for voice and instruments. It is a piece of sung poetry set to music. It is usually only a few minutes long. "

" Periods of nostalgia are impossible to predict or explain. "

" I don't see my artist friends as any more neurotic or addiction-prone than the others. The roommates I have had who were into triathlons or environmentalism were just as crazy as the poets, just as prone to tears over gardening or air conditioners, just as ready to kite a cheque or binge on cookie dough. "

" Canadian writers don't live in gated mansions; you can just talk to them when you see them lining up at the Second Cup. "

" Everyone likes to hear that their eccentricities and their addictions are simply evidence of their sensitive artistic nature. "

" Most critics of gender division are women, and they're worried about girls and the roles presented for them by gendered entertainments. They are quite right to be. Telling girls that the cars and the guns are beyond their domain of expertise, and that they should content themselves with clothes and friendships, is limiting. "

" I'm in favour of hipster androgyny: Any trend that permits men to rebel against strict gender rules of appearance is going to make the world a more expressive and sensitive place for all of us. "

" Men over 60 often think that if they wear athletic shoes - soft-soled referee shoes or hiking shoes or actual running shoes - then they will look more youthful. The contrary is true. "

" If you define eccentricity as creativity, then yes, creativity is eccentricity. "

" If people didn't read books on the subway, underground journeys would be dreary. "

" Songs are great. I love songs. I sing them in the shower sometimes. They can be poignant or cheery or angry, and they can have catchy and satisfying melodies. There's nothing wrong with songs. "

" My son craves picture books about Transformers and Ninja Turtles and the Hulk; they show one fantastic creature smashing or zapping another into smithereens on page after page. They are dull and ugly and show no interesting stories or models of conflict resolution or character building. "

" I was given a thick paperback copy of the 'Guinness Book of Records' when I was 11 years old, and I read it gluttonously, cover to cover, paying special lip-smacking attention to all the incredibly gruesome chapters about the violence of human history. "

" Kindle Worlds is a clever way to monetize a formerly underground trend, and to enable its participants to be remunerated. But it will be of no interest to writers with any literary ambition, as its constraints are designed to stymie even the most rudimentary impulses - even the first flickering of a dangerous originality. "

" In the best stories, people are morally complex; they are flawed. We read them because the world is flawed, and we want to see it truthfully represented. And because it can be thrilling to be shocked and upset, and even to feel, for chilling moments, what it's like to be a bad person. "

" Have you noticed the people most likely to be up in arms about governments apparently spying on us tend to be the most non-private people you know? The people launching petitions and wailing about Big Brother and data collection are most likely to be the most constant self-presenters. "

" Universities can teach maturity. They can teach teenagers how to be adults, and that means to function outside a clique or a tribe. "

" I would rather be nuts than unattractive. "

" Sadly, I don't really believe in the idea of timeless fashion. It's an oxymoron. If 'classic fashion' really never changed, we'd all still be wearing togas. "

" I have argued about the future of fiction with jaded novelists, far-seeing postmodernists, technologists, television critics. The argument that future generations will not know the pleasures of the novel has been a staple of book reviewing since at least 1960. "

" Personally, I see little distinction between an artistic mentality and criminality. You couldn't possibly create a compelling story without some wickedness or some fascination with the disgusting. Being good is a hindrance to a writer. "

" What I don't understand is why men have decided that they like wearing hats indoors. It makes no sense to me. "

" Even in early adulthood, men can't be told what to wear; they can only be subtly moved by example, encouragement, and a generally sophisticated atmosphere. "

" I went to Queen's - a fine university with the proudly stupidest frosh week in the country. This was, when I was there, supposed to be somehow evidence of a higher social class. "

" Guys think that the military associations of camo are going to make them look tough, as if they might just break out a shotgun and take down a passing duck at any given moment. I'm not so sure. "

" I have never, ever, not once, met a writer who said he or she would never read a mystery or a story set in some imagined future. "

" Calls for the simplification of abstract or allusive art have always come from governments suspicious of artists themselves. This is why totalitarian regimes have always legislated some form of realism. "

" Wear your clothes with abandon, I say; don't keep them pristine as if for museums: They are meant to wear out. Then you get to buy new ones. "

" The only thing that makes a book YA is that it is about teenagers, and it is written in a very conventional, non-artsy, non-pretentious way. YA is not the place for the oblique or the cryptic. If it is in any way experimental in form, it is not YA. "