It is America that gave me so much in my life. It wasn't until I came to America that my life just exploded in so many ways. So for me, I think in a way, though I'm English, I've been living the American Dream and I'm eternally grateful to Americans for allowing me to do what I love doing the most.

Mary Poppins is magical and fun.

If you just literally stand still for a while, listen and think, things will eventually get sorted out.

If you're tearing around in a panic about something, then it puts everyone else in a panic as well.

These days, people like me who are in the arts are perceived as celebrity writers. That really makes me angry because I expend a great deal of effort and spend an enormous amount of time on my books. And I've been writing now for 35 years.

Once in a while I experience an emotion onstage that is so gut-wrenching, so heart-stopping, that I could weep with gratitude and joy. The feeling catches and magnifies so rapidly that it threatens to engulf me.

Public libraries are our great teachers and storytellers, and are a vital adjunct to our schools. In this day of standardized and homogenized education, a library offers individual and personalized learning opportunities second to none.