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

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.

A library is a feast to which we are all invited.

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.

I can't believe there will ever be a time when the book is truly obsolete. It is the perfect technology and feeds the soul.

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.

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