I was an only child; I didn't have a sister, or sisters.

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.

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.

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

The humiliation that Jane had felt turned to something else--grief perhaps, or regret. Regret that she had not known how to act with a boy, regret that she had not been wiser.

Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being able to make something from a sudden idea.

All knowledge is valuable to a librarian.