So here I am, sending a two-ounce mouse down into a dungeon with a sewing needle to save a human princess, and I don't know how in the world he's going to do it. I have no idea. That was the first time it occurred to me that writing the story was roughly equivalent to Despereaux's descent into the dungeon. I was tremendously aware of that as I was writing. I thought, "I have to be brave or else I'm not going to be able to tell it." But it's the only way that I can write. If I know what's going to happen, I'm not interested in telling the story.

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

[He] had the soul of a poet, and because of this, he liked very much to consider questions that had no answers.

I love adventurous travel. I also love pancakes, and making pancakes for other people. You would definitely find me in the airy treetop as opposed to below ground.

The Tiger Rising is, again, about a motherless child. His name is Rob Horton. He is dealing with the death of his mother, when he and his father move to a new town. And two things happen the same day that Rob gets sent home. One is he meets a girl named Sistine Bailey, who is what my mother would call "a piece of work," and he finds a real tiger in a cage in the woods behind the motel where he lives with his dad. And that's the story: what happens with the Sistine tiger, the real tiger and Rob's grief.

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

There ain't no point in making soup unless others eat it. Soup needs another mouth to taste it, another heart to be warmed by it.