It wasn't so much that he minded telling Leslie that he was afraid to go; it was that he minded being afraid. It was as though he had been made with a great piece missing - one of May Belle's puzzles with this huge gap where somebody's eye should have been. Lord, it would be better to be born without an arm than to go through life with no guts.

What I have come to believe is that joy is the twin sister of gratitude. I am most joyful when I am most grateful.

It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations- something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.

There are few things, apparently, more helpful to a writer than having once been a weird little kid.

Lord, let me heed the angels you put in my path.

Reading can be a road to freedom or a key to a secret garden, which, if tended, will transform all of life.

It is always sad to write about prejudice, but sometimes when we see it being played out in the lives of fictional characters, we can recognize it in our own lives.