Children are caterpillars and adults are butterflies. No butterfly ever remembers what it felt like being a caterpillar.

Books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them.

You know, it's a funny thing about writers. Most people don't stop to think of books being written by people much like themselves. They think that writers are all dead long ago--they don't expect to meet them in the street or out shopping. They know their stories but not their names, and certainly not their faces. And most writers like it that way.

Quite suddenly Meggie felt fear rise in her like black brackish water, she felt lost, terribly lost, she felt it in every part of her. She didn't belong here! What had she done?

Killing is easy," said Mo, "Dying is harder.

And I always read the English translation and always have conversations with my translator, for example about the names. I always have to approve it.

Because by now Elinor had understood this, too: A longing for books was nothing compared with what you could feel for human beings. The books told you about that feeling. The books spoke of love, and it was wonderful to listen to them, but they were no substitute for love itself. They couldn't kiss her like Meggie, they couldn't hug her like Resa, they couldn't laugh like Mortimer. Poor books, poor Elinor.