Children have to have access to books, and a lot of children can't go to a store and buy a book. We need not only our public libraries to be funded properly and staffed properly, but our school libraries. Many children can't get to a public library, and the only library they have is a school library.

Mandarin ducks mate for life and will die of loneliness if separated from their chosen mate.

What we need to wake people up to now is the crisis in imagination and concern for the greater good. We have no idea what the next ten years, much less the next fifty years, will demand of the coming generation. What we do know is that unless we have a people prepared and eager to meet those crises creatively and compassionately, there is not much hope for this poor old planet of ours.

You have to believe it and you hate it. I don't have to and I think it's beautiful.

Miss Edmunds was one of his secrets. He was in love with her. Not the kind of silly stuff Ellie and Brenda giggled about on the telephone. This was too real and too deep to talk about, even to think about very much.

That was the rule that you never mixed up troubles at home with life at school. When parents were poor or ignorant or mean, or even just didn't believe in having a TV set, it was up to their kids to protect them.

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