Shh" he said. "Look." "Where?" "Can't you see'um?" he whispered. "All the Terabithians standing on tiptoe to see you." "Me?" "Shh, yes. There's a rumor going around that the beautiful girl arrving today might be the queen they've been waiting for.

The difference between writing a story and simply relating past events is that a story, in order to be acceptable, must have shape and meaning. It is the old idea that art is the bringing of order out of chaos.

If you're so afraid of your imagination that you stifle it, how are you going to know God? How can you imagine heaven?

What a gift of grace to be able to take the chaos from within and from it create some semblance of order.

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

We are trying to communicate that which lies in our deepest heart, which has no words, which can only be hinted at through the means of a story. And somehow, miraculously, a story that comes from deep in my heart calls from a reader that which is deepest in his or her heart, and together from our secret hidden selves we create a story that neither of us could have told alone.

Many people are angry when they make a mistake, but very few people have the sense to be sorry.