You are down there alone, the stars seemed to say to him. And we are up here, in our constellations, together.

We all live in fear of getting blocked no matter what kind of art we're trying to do. It happens all the time, but I prefer to think of it as a bad day.

When we read together, we connect. Together, we see the world. Together, we see one another.

I love words; I love the way they sound. Once I've worked on everything else, the last drafts of my books come down to how they sound.

The Tale of Despereaux came at the request of Luke, my friend's then-eight-year-old son, who asked, "Write for me the story of an unlikely hero with exceptionally large ears."

[He] had the soul of a poet, and because of this, he liked very much to consider questions that had no answers.

At least Lester had the decency to weep at his act of perfidy. Reader, do you know what 'perfidy' means? I have a feeling you do, based on the scene that unfolded here. But you should look up the word in your dictionary, just to be sure.