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.

Today is declared an unscheduled holiday.

The writer after all is only half the book, the other half is the reader.

Sometimes I wish they'd ask for my wisdom more often - there are so many things I could tell them; things I wish they would change. But they don't want change. Life here is so orderly, so predictable - so painless. It's what they've chosen.

I don't know what you mean when you say 'the whole world' or 'generations before him.'I thought there was only us. I thought there was only now.

Always in the dream, it seemed as if there were a destination: a something--he could not grasp what-that lay beyond the place where the thickness of snow brought the sled to a stop. He was left, upon awakening, with the feeling that he wanted, even somehow needed, to reach the something that waited in the distance. The feeling that it was good. That it was welcoming. That it was significant. But he did not know how to get there.

Gathering Blue' was a separate book. I wanted to explore what a society might become after a catastrophic world event. Only at the end did I realize I could make it connect to 'The Giver.