Love!' said the princess. She stamped her foot. 'Why must everyone always speak of love?

No one cared what she wanted. No one had ever cared. And perhaps, worst of all, no one ever would care.

If I am just home and writing, I become very strange.

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.

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.

You don't realize what you're going to get, and you can't prepare yourself for it.

This is the great thing about writing for kids. Adults might not do anything if they recognized me. But if they do see me, and they're with a kid, they'll tell the kid who I am. They think they should give that to the kid. So generally that sends the kid over.