I do know that I need solitude, not only to write but to nourish myself (being, like most writers, an introvert) so that I do keep trying to write.

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

We book people are always preaching about reading aloud to children, but unless you do, you can't realize how it enriches family life.

Nothing smelled so good or danced so well as a birch fire.

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

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.

I was behaving, just like I promised, but fate intervened.