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

In luggage claim at the Minneapolis airport, the guy came up to me and said, "Maybe you're wrong, maybe stories do matter." I wrote that on a scrap of paper and put it above my desk. That was the thing that pushed me through to the end of telling Despereaux, that comment, "Maybe they do...maybe stories matter."

I think I'm succinct to the point of trying to write the two-word novel. Editing my work almost never means taking anything out but rather adding, because I'm always stripping down. I tend to under-write rather than over-write.

As a kid books changed how I looked at the world and helped me understand things. Books still deepen me and open my heart.

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.

But still, here are the words Despereaux Tilling spoke to his father. He said, "I forgive you, Pa!" And he said those words because he sensed that it was the only way to save his heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself.

We must ask ourselves these questions as often as we dare. How will the world change if we do not question it?