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

I woke up one morning and realized that what I wanted to say to everyone - children, young people, adults - was: Read for your life.

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

You gotta know someone cares about you, or you just give up.

This is what art is all about. It is weaving fabric from the feathers you have plucked from your own breast. But no one must ever see the process - only the finished bolt of goods. They must never suspect that that crimson thread running through the pattern is blood.

Some folks are natural born kickers. They can always find a way to turn disaster into butter.

Reading asks that you bring your whole life experience and your ability to decode the written word and your creative imagination to the page and be a co-author with the writer, because the story is just squiggles on the page unless you have a reader.