She began to feel the sense of wonderful elation that always came to her when beauty took hold of her and made her forget her fears.

And sometimes when we listen, we are led into places we do not expect, into adventures we do not always understand.

My husband is my most ruthless critic... sometimes he will say, 'It's been said better before.' Of course it has. It's all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I'd never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me; ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn't what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die.

An artist is someone who cannot rest, who can never rest as long as there is one suffering creature in the world.

I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be.

I believe that good questions are more important than answers, and the best children's books ask questions, and make the readers ask questions. And every new question is going to disturb someone's universe.

I'm apt to get drunk on words...Ontology: the word about the essence of things; the word about being.