I believe, sometimes, that the whole world has an aching heart.

Besides, who ever asked you what you wanted in this world, girl? The answer to that question, reader, as you well know, was absolutely no one.

I have not Googled myself. I have not looked at myself on Amazon. It could drive you wild.

I have been loved, Edward told the stars. So? said the stars. What difference does that make when you are all alone now?

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."

She was working to remind herself of who she was. She was working to remember that somewhere in another place entirely she was known and loved.

I'm just doing what I've done my whole life, which is talking to people about books and making them read. It's what I do in my friendships. "Here, you have to read this, you have to read this."