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

On Decoration Day, while everyone else in town was at the cemetery decorating the graves of our Glorious War Dead, Willie Beaner and me, Robert Burns Hewitt, took Mabel Cramm's bloomers and run them up the flagpole in front of the town hall. That was the beginning of all my troubles.

Some folks are natural born kickers. They can always find a way to turn disaster into butter.

I'm sure my first nine years have had a powerful influence on the kind of books I write.

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

Teachers have almost stopped reading aloud to their classes because of the pressure of testing and tight curricula, but it is the books we read together and talk about together that bring us closer together.

To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.