Open your heart. Someone will come. Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart. (Old Doll)

A typical day for me is I get up at 6:00, the coffeemaker goes on automatically and the computer gets turned on. I pour a cup of coffee, listen to Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac, and then I write.

Magic is always impossible.... It begins with the impossible and ends with the impossible and is impossible in between. That is why it's magic.

I think that that's part of how people have responded to The Tiger Rising. It's what I call my dark child. It's gotten sandwiched in between two overachieving, tap-dance-performing kids - Winn-Dixie and Despereaux.

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.

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

I need to write, and I can't write when I'm on the road.