Murphy is a writer's best friend, but you have to keep an eye on him, or he'll steal the silver.

In a lot of ways I was a generation ahead of my generation; I had a working mother wheneveryone else’s mother was staying at home.

No matter how good you are at sneaking, you can't ever sneak well enough so that mosquitoes won't find you, and no matter how worried and tense you are, or how hard you are trying to pay attention, you just can't help noticing when a cloud of mosquitoes comes for you like you're their first good meal since last fall.

Many, if not most, of the best and most lasting children’s books have multiple levels, some of which are not fully accessible to their most likely readers…at least, not on their first read-through at age eight or ten or fifteen.

It took us most of the morning to put together the letter she sent to the Frontier Management Department, and I learned a lot about how to be frigidly polite and still leave somebody feeling like they'd been spanked.

Then they gave me a loaf of bread and told me to walk through the forest and give some to anyone who asked. I did exactly what they told me, and the second beggar-woman was a fairy in disguise, but instead of saying that whenever I spoke, diamonds and roses would drop from my mouth, she said that since I was so kind, I would never have any problems with my teeth.” “Really? Did it work?” “Well, I haven’t had a toothache since I met her.” “I’d much rather have good teeth than have diamonds and roses drop out of my mouth whenever I said something

Sometimes I couldn't help thinking that the unluckiest thing about being the thirteenth child was having all those older brothers and sisters telling me what to do.