Most of my books begin with an image or a voice - one small thing - and I don't know what it is going to become.

As Elmore Leonard says, I write to find out what happens.

There are hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman.

Mercy Watson is pure fun for me as a writer, because I think of her as kind of sorbet - a palate cleanser - between larger works. It's always a relief to come back to her.

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

All of that loneliness and longing in my heart got transferred into the book Because of Winn-Dixie, I guess.

There is a lot of love in him, a lot of love in his heart...And he is up there with no one and nothing to love. It is a bad thing to have love and no where to put it.