I knew what it was like to lose someone you loved. You didn't get past something like that, you got through it.

May I ask you something?" I say. "Why do you read books, when you could be outside, living a million different adventures every day?" "Because you can always count on a book to stay the same. EVerything else changes when you least expect it," she replies, bitter. "Families split apart, and nothing's forever. In books, you always know what's coming next. There are no surprises.

I realized it was like looking into the sun—you shouldn't do it, because you'd turn your face away and be blind to everything else.

It is always hardest for me to write a book that has kids in it close to my kids' ages. It is always hardest for me to write a book that has kids in it close to my kids' ages.

Hunger, she often tells me, has nothing to do with the belly and everything to do with the mind. What Mary really runs isn't a bakery, but a community.

What could it be like to find out, in a matter of minutes, that the person you believed the sun rose and set on was not the person you'd thought?

Once, I asked my mom why stars shine. She said they were night-lights, so the angels could find their way around in Heaven. But when I asked my dad, he started talking about gas, and somehow I put it all together and figured that the food God served caused multiple trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night.