Alison [McGhee] and I have known each other since the summer of 2001. One evening we were sitting around talking about how we wished we had a good story to work on. Alison said: Why don't we work on a story together? I said: A story about what? And Alison said: A story about a short girl and a tall girl.

The only control you have over a movie is whether or not you decide to sell the rights.

There are hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman.

Anybody who puts a book into someone else's hands inspires me - teachers, librarians, booksellers, parents.

Don't drop him," said Peter's mother to his father. "Don't you dare drop him." She was laughing. "I will not," said his father. "I could not." For he is Peter Augustus Duchene, and he will always return to me. Again and again, Peter's father threw him up in the air. Again and again, Peter felt himself suspended in nothingness for a moment, just a moment, and then he was pulled back, returned to the sweetness of the earth and the warmth of his father's waiting arms. "See?" said his father to his mother. "Do you see how he always comes back to me?

For children: I'm writing a picture book about the Big Dipper and a novel about a cricket, a firefly and a vole. For grownups: I'm writing poems.

Mercy Watson is pure fun for me as a writer, because I think of her as kind of sorbet - a palate cleanser - between larger works. It's always a relief to come back to her.