His mind reeled. Now, empowered to ask questions of utmost rudeness-and promised answers-he could, conceivably (though it was almost unimaginable), ask someone, some adult, his father perhaps: "Do you lie?" But he would have no way of knowing if the answer he received was true.

I make up the characters in my books, but of course my consciousness is filled with every child I've ever known, including my two grandchildren, my own kids (I had four) and especially myself as a child, because that person still lives inside me, too.

For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps, it was only an echo.

I'm not terribly conversant with children's literature in general. I tend to read books for adults, being an adult.

That's why they call you Seer. You see more than most.

Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything.

He hunched his shoulders and tried to make himself smaller in the seat. He wanted to disappear, to fade away, not to exist.