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

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

There's a notion of art in this country that you have to be nutty or special or "called" in order to be an artist. I believe the questions everyone should ask themselves are, "Do you want to do it? Are you willing to do it poorly? Are you willing to do the work of doing it? Are you willing to persist when everybody tells you it's silly?" If you're willing to do that, then you can do it.

Wayne Wang, the director of Because of Winn-Dixie the movie, understood the book and transferred as much of the feeling of the book onto film as humanly possible. I think he did a fabulous job. And also I'm thrilled because the movie brings people to the book - people that wouldn't know about the book - and that's a great thing.

May God strike me down with a hammer on the head before I write a book with a teach-y goal!

The undoing is almost always more difficult than the doing.

It is our duty and our joy to communicate our hearts to each other. Words assist us in this task.