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, oh my god, kids are reading, and they care about a book enough to come over and talk to me about a book that they care about. If I think about it as being a celebrity, it would freak me out. But I just think, lucky me, that I get to be a part of this whole thing.

Writing is seeing. It is paying attention.

My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me fairy tales that he had made up shaped me profoundly, too.

I think Tony Fucile, who did the illustrations [for Bink & Gollie], is an absolute genius. I've never met him.

Look at me, he said to her. His arms and legs jerked. Look at me. You got your wish. I have learned how to love. And it’s a terrible thing. I’m broken. My heart is broken. Help me. The old woman turned and hobbled away. Come back, thought Edward. Fix me

All of God's creatures have names, every last one of them. Of that I am sure: of that I have no doubt at all.