We had so much fun together as friends that I suggested we [with Kate DiCamillo] write a book together.

You are most powerful when you are most silent. People never expect silence. They expect words, motion, defense, offense, back and forth. They expect to leap into the fray. They are ready, fists up, words hanging leaping from their mouths. Silence? No.

I'm a big State Fair person, and my main goal is to eat as much food as possible, but I tend not to do the foods on a stick. But I like Big Fat Bacon.

Water seeks its own level. Look at them. The Tigris, the Euphrates, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Yangtze. The world's great rivers. And every one of them finds its way to the ocean.

All it takes is a single moment.

We pulled them [ Bink & Gollie] out of our feeble little brains.

We met in the summer or fall of 2001. I had never met Kate [DiCamillo], though I'd heard her name, and I think she knew of me too. We were laughing within a few minutes, I mean really, furiously, laughing. So we were off to a good start.