Do people choose the art that inspires them — do they think it over, decide they might prefer the fabulous to the real? For me, it was those early readings of fairy tales that made me who I was as a reader and, later on, as a storyteller.

When I walk, I walk with you. Where I go, you're with me always.

That's the way love sounds, my mother told me. You think it should feel like honey, but instead it cuts like a knife.

You can try to take sorrow and make it into something enduring, meaningful and beautiful. I always feel guilty that this is my job, that I get to do this

Some things, when they change, never do return to the way they once were. Butterflies for instance, and women who've been in love with the wrong man too often.

A boy who is trouble is something entirely different as a man.

She was so busy forgetting, she couldn't take a single step into the future.