There ain't no point in making soup unless others eat it. Soup needs another mouth to taste it, another heart to be warmed by it.

I think that that's part of how people have responded to The Tiger Rising. It's what I call my dark child. It's gotten sandwiched in between two overachieving, tap-dance-performing kids - Winn-Dixie and Despereaux.

Love, as we have already discussed, is a powerful, wonderful, ridiculous thing, capable of moving mountains. And spools of thread.

SEASONS PASSED, FALL AND WINTER and spring and summer. Leaves blew in through the open door of Lucius Clarke’s shop, and rain, and the green outrageous hopeful light of spring. People came and went, grandmothers and doll collectors and little girls with their mothers. Edward Tulane waited. The seasons turned into years. Edward Tulane waited. He repeated the old doll’s words over and over until they wore a smooth groove of hope in his brain: Someone will come; someone will come for you.

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift.

I have not Googled myself. I have not looked at myself on Amazon. It could drive you wild.

There ain't no way you can hold onto something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it.