He was dressed as if everything he wore had come from different stores or from a rummage sale, except that the crease in his trousers was sharp and his shoes were shined.

I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.

I don't necessarily start with the beginning of the book. I just start with the part of the story that's most vivid in my imagination and work forward and backward from there.

All knowledge is valuable to a librarian.

We didn't have television in those days, and many people didn't even have radios. My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening.

Today I discovered two kinds of people who go to high school: those who wear new clothes to show off on the first day, and those who wear their oldest clothes to show they think school is unimportant.

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