Death is very mysterious to us. One moment someone is there with us, and the next moment they're not.

A good story is alive, ever changing and growing as it meets each listener or reader in a spirited and unique encounter, while the moralistic tale is not only dead on arrival, it's already been embalmed. It's safer that way. When a lively story goes dancing out to meet the imagination of a child, the teller loses control over meaning. The child gets to decide what the story means.

We book people are always preaching about reading aloud to children, but unless you do, you can't realize how it enriches family life.

I love revision. Where else can spilled milk be turned into ice cream?

A great novel is a kind of conversion experience. We come away from it changed.

Kids often ask me if characters are real or made up - and I always tell them, 'I hope they're real but I made them up.'

What a gift of grace to be able to take the chaos from within and from it create some semblance of order.