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.'

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.

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

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

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.

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 seems to me that there are two great enemies of peace - fear and selfishness.