I cannot just write a frivolous book, a la-di-da book. Everything isn't la-di-da. There is something that's going to pull you up short. I want to reassure young readers. I want to comfort them, to not fear the unexpected.

You know, maybe that's all anybody wants, is to be useful. And have somebody else notice it.

Don't judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.

I am drawn to the ways in which we are shaped by people and by place.

I was wishing I was invisible. Outside, the leaves were falling to the ground, and I was infinitely sad, sad down to my bones. I was sad for Phoebe and her parents and Prudence and Mike, sad for the leaves that were dying, and sad for myself, for something I had lost.

how can you love a little cat so much in such a short short time?

I wish that every baby everywhere could land in a family that wanted that baby as much as we want ours.