With twins, reading aloud to them was the only chance I could get to sit down. I read them picture books until they were reading on their own.

All her life she had wanted to squeeze the toothpaste really squeeze it,not just one little squirt. [...] The paste coiled and swirled and mounded in the washbasin. Ramona decorated the mound with toothpaste roses as if it was a toothpaste birthday cake

I have lovely memories of Los Angeles in the 1930s. I came down to live with my mother's cousin and they invited me to come and go to junior college for a year.

I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.

Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood.

My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening. She read mainly travel books.

My favorite books are a constantly changing list, but one favorite has remained constant: the dictionary. Is the word I want to use spelled practice or practise? The dictionary knows. The dictionary also slows down my writing because it is such interesting reading that I am distracted.