One, we [with Alison McGhee] laugh a lot - that was great. Two, I enjoy writing, but it's a lonely undertaking. To have someone in the room with me i….

Men and boys always want to go fight. They are always looking for a reason to go to war. It is the saddest thing. They have this abiding notion that ….

We forget that the simple gesture of putting a book in someone's hands can change a life. I want to remind you that it can. I want to thank you becau….

[Our first dinner with Alison McGhee] was at Figlio's [in Minneapolis]. I know exactly what I had, because it was so good: their three-cheese ravioli….

Mercy Watson is pure fun for me as a writer, because I think of her as kind of sorbet - a palate cleanser - between larger works. It's always a relie….

We [me and Alison McGhee] probably wouldn't have said that when we were writing the stories, but it is so apparent to me in the finished product. For….

A typical day for me is I get up at 6:00, the coffeemaker goes on automatically and the computer gets turned on. I pour a cup of coffee, listen to Ga….

When we read together, we connect. Together, we see the world. Together, we see one another..

When I get to a point in my book writing when I don't know what I'm going to do next, I'll come back look at underlined passages and see if the image….

In a dark time, doors will sometimes magically open and let us step inside to the warmth and light of a community..

The closest I can get to describing what happens is that voices come to me. I feel like I'm accessing something that is deeper and richer than me..

I love words; I love the way they sound. Once I've worked on everything else, the last drafts of my books come down to how they sound..

In The Tale of Despereaux, there is a lot of darkness, a lot of despair. There's also a lot of light, redemption, hope. There's forgiveness, there's ….

Besides, who ever asked you what you wanted in this world, girl? The answer to that question, reader, as you well know, was absolutely no one..

Rob Horton, the main character of The Tiger Rising, was a secondary character in an adult short story I wrote, and he wouldn't go away after I'd fini….

The world is dark, and light is precious. Come closer, dear reader. You must trust me. I am telling you a story..

Most of my books begin with an image or a voice - one small thing - and I don't know what it is going to become..

There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, a….

[He] had the soul of a poet, and because of this, he liked very much to consider questions that had no answers..

This is the danger of loving: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how many kingdoms you rule, you cannot stop those you love from dying..

May God strike me down with a hammer on the head before I write a book with a teach-y goal!.