You don't have to fight dragons to write books. You just have to live deeply the life you've been given.

We do have trouble dealing with death, but it's the one thing that is guaranteed we are all going to have to do, and we are going to have to face it many times before we die ourselves.

It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.

Punch after punch after punch. February is a mean bully. Nothing could be worse - except August.

Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits.

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.

You never know ahead of time what something's really going to be like.