Anybody who puts a book into someone else's hands inspires me - teachers, librarians, booksellers, parents.

There can be a lot of longevity in the repetition of things being told again and again in a variety of ways.

And so he was reading the story as if it were a spell and the words of it, spoken aloud, could make magic happen.

I'm predisposed to think that as a people, we're hardwired to understand things through the telling of stories. I think that as human beings it's part of who we are.

It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. I think the best way for children to treasure reading is for them to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.

Nothing new ever happens in the books. It's the same old theme.

I always wanted to be a character, when I worked at Disney, but I wasn't short enough for certain characters and I wasn't tall enough for others. I wanted to be a chipmunk; I think 4'10" was the cutoff.