What I hope is that the book [Bink & Gollie] delights children. What I hope is that they laugh and laugh and laugh, just as we did when we wrote them.

The closest I can get to describing what happens is that voices come to me. I feel like I'm accessing something that is deeper and richer than me.

I think of Mercy Watson like a superball; there's a bouncy kind of optimism to her stories. She allows me to play, and she makes me laugh. Hopefully readers feel the same way.

One, we [with Alison McGhee] laugh a lot - that was great. Two, I enjoy writing, but it's a lonely undertaking. To have someone in the room with me is an absolute delight and makes it seem less impossible. It became a kind of comforting, joyful process.

Did you think that rats do not have hearts? Wrong. All living things have a heart. And the heart of any living thing can be broken.

She was working to remind herself of who she was. She was working to remember that somewhere in another place entirely she was known and loved.

I'm at the mercy of whatever character comes into my head.