The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane began with a friend giving me a rabbit doll - forgive me, Edward, for using that word; he doesn't like "doll" - for Christmas. I said, "Oh, he's lovely, what's his name?" And she said, "Edward." And a few days after I received the rabbit, who was dressed very handsomely in Edwardian kind of clothes, I saw him stripped of his finery and face down on the bottom of the ocean floor. Why? I don't know. But that's where his story began in my head.

No matter how hard you try to be present at home, you're always doing the things that you have to do.

There are so many difficult things and stories can make them palatable. That's the way I have always felt.

I thought I was going nowhere. Now I can see there was a pattern.

I feel like I've been blessed. I see the world through stories.

Mercy Watson is obsessed with toast. What was blocking me was the challenge of trying to understand what she loves, what motivates her. That was the missing piece. Toast became the physical symbol of Mercy's hopefully endearing greed and obsession. Without that element in place, it didn't make sense.

That is surely the truth, at least for now. But perhaps you have not noticed: the truth is forever changing.