Reading has made such a profound difference to my life. I'm sure I became a writer because of the power of literature in my own life.

A good story is alive, ever changing and growing as it meets each listener or reader in a spirited and unique encounter, while the moralistic tale is not only dead on arrival, it's already been embalmed. It's safer that way. When a lively story goes dancing out to meet the imagination of a child, the teller loses control over meaning. The child gets to decide what the story means.

My heart is heavy, she thought. It’s not just a saying. It is what is—heavy, a great stone lodged in my breast, pressing down my whole being. How can I even stand straight and look out upon the world? I am doubled over into myself and, for all the weight, find only emptiness.

The name we give to something shapes our attitude toward it.

Sometimes you need to give people something that's for them, not just something that makes you feel good giving it.

What I really want to do is to write a hilarious farce.

Everybody gets scared sometimes, May Belle. You don't have to be ashamed.