Things are not at all what they seem to be: oh no, not at all.

There are those 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. Such was the fate of Chiaroscuro. His heart was broken. Picking up the spoon and placing it on his head, speaking of revenge, these things helped him to put his heart together again. But it was, alas, put together wrong.

The way we started was, Alison [McGhee] said, 'Tall girl, short girl.' We had no plans beyond that.

You are down there alone, the stars seemed to say to him. And we are up here, in our constellations, together.

I think for everybody reading can be a solace, illumination, education.

The Tale of Despereaux is the story of an unlikely hero, a mouse, who falls in love with a princess and then must save her. It's a triumph of the human spirit, via a mouse.

I feel like I've been blessed. I see the world through stories.