Anybody who puts a book into someone else's hands inspires me - teachers, librarians, booksellers, parents..

Say it, reader. Say the word 'quest' out loud. It is an extraordinary word, isn't it? So small and yet so full of wonder, so full of hope..

Rats have a sense of humor. Rats, in fact think the world is very funny. And they are right, dear reader. They are right..

I think of Mercy Watson like a superball; there's a bouncy kind of optimism to her stories. She allows me to play, and she makes me laugh. Hopefully ….

Mercy Watson is obsessed with toast. What was blocking me was the challenge of trying to understand what she loves, what motivates her. That was the ….

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

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

Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark..

Reader, do you think it is a terrible thing to hope when there is really no reason to hope at all? Or is it (as the soldier said about happiness) som….

There ain't no point in making soup unless others eat it. Soup needs another mouth to taste it, another heart to be warmed by it..

Miracles and magic pervade the things that I've written, but yet there are no miracles and there is no magic..

... every time you look at the world and the people in it closely, lovingly, imaginatively, it changes you. The world, under the microscope of your a….

You are the ever-expanding universe to me.

Hands down, the biggest thrill is to get a letter from a kid saying, I loved your book. Will you write me another one?.

There is a lot of love in him, a lot of love in his heart...And he is up there with no one and nothing to love. It is a bad thing to have love and no….

Go home and read to your adult. We forget how much we love to be read to..

I show up and try, but I may have to ask myself if I need to wait and let myself regenerate and take a break. I know that this thing that makes the s….

I read whatever the publisher sends me..

Have you, in truth, ever seen something so heartbreakingly lovely? What are we to make of a world where stars shine bright in the midst of so much da….

Holly McGhee said I should come to dinner with them. That first dinner, I said something pretty smart-alecky, and Alison [McGhee] laughed really hard….

All of that loneliness and longing in my heart got transferred into the book Because of Winn-Dixie, I guess..