The words, "I have a dog named Winn-Dixie," popped into my head in the voice of a small girl with a southern accent. I'd been writing long enough at that point to know not to ignore that kind of red flag. The next day, I put aside what I'd been working on, started with that one sentence, and followed it all the way to the end.

I thought I was going nowhere. Now I can see there was a pattern.

If I am just home and writing, I become very strange.

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.

To me the book is like having a kid. I have to let it go out in the world, and great things will happen. Maybe they won't, but it has to keep on moving.

You can't always judge people by the things they done. You got to judge them by what they are doing now.

Allow me to congratulate you on your very astute powers of observation.