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

Pea was aware suddenly of how fragile her heart was, how much darkness was inside it, fighting, always, with the light. She did not like the rat. She would neverlike the rat, but she knew what she must do to save her own heart.

Nobody ever learns anything.

Forgiveness, reader, is, I think, something very much like hope and love - a powerful, wonderful thing. And a ridiculous thing, too.

We must ask ourselves these questions as often as we dare. How will the world change if we do not question it?

There can be a lot of longevity in the repetition of things being told again and again in a variety of ways.

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.