I was visiting my mother in Florida when the September 11, 2001 attacks happened. I was working on The Tale of Despereaux at that point. I had already gone into writing it with a great deal of trepidation and fear, and then this God-awful thing happens and it was really hard to even get back home to Minneapolis.

Each new friendship can make you a new person, because it opens up new doors inside of you.

Every morning for, I don't know how long, I came over to Alison's [McGhee] house and we sat in her office and wrote the stories "out loud" together. We yelled at each other and made each other laugh. It was a lot of fun.

That is surely the truth, at least for now. But perhaps you have not noticed: the truth is forever changing.

Love is in all of the books, and that's the connective tissue between them. There's a lot of hope in me; I can feel it. These stories are balls of light for me.

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

I've been recognized in airports lots of places, but mostly getting recognized is at home.