Everyone is small at night.

Thats beautiful! Sad and beautiful," murmured Meggie. Why were sad stories often so beautiful? It was different in real life.

Perhaps the story in the book is just the lid on a pan: It always stays the same, but underneath there's a whole world that goes on - developing and changing like our own world.

I wish I had more time to visit schools.

I'm perfectly happy to know the world at secondhand. It's a lot safer.

Because fear kills everything," Mo had once told her. "Your mind, your heart, your imagination.

Is there anything in the world better than words on the page? Magic signs, the voices of the dead, building blocks to make wonderful worlds better than this one, comforters, companions in loneliness. Keepers of secrets, speakers of the truth...all those glorious words.