As a shy, introverted, scholarly child (long ago) I don't know what I would have done without libraries! My family moved often. I was always the new kid in town. The library always offered me my first and most important friendship: the place where I felt right at home. I still feel that way today, about libraries.

The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.

I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid.

Once she read a book but found it distasteful because it contained adjectives.

Early on I came to realize something, and it came from the mail I received from kids. That is, kids at that pivotal age, 12, 13 or 14, they're still deeply affected by what they read, some are changed by what they read, books can change the way they feel about the world in general. I don't think that's true of adults as much.

We live in times that are in many ways ambiguous. Maybe that's why kids want precision in what they read - they don't like that moral ambiguity.

It be better, I think, to climb out in search of something, instead of hating, what you're leaving.