Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

I didn't want to talk, and I didn't think dogs could solve my problems. But they were so uncritical and un-judgmental. Sometimes when you're really blue, you don't want to talk, but you want that sense of companionship. I certainly enjoy that with my beasts.

I might have missed my calling as an editor. In the spring, the sight of my empty garden beds gives me the horticultural equivalent of writers' block: So much space! So many plants to choose among, and yet none of them seem quite right!

Knowledge is a beautiful thing, but there are a few things I wish I didn't know.

Sometimes I think I've figured out some order in the universe, but then I find myself in Florida

Every single one of my books had its title changed almost as we were going to press, for all sorts of different reasons.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.