One thing I’m interested in is what shapes us: the people? The place where we live? It’s both of those and more. That’s what I keep coming back to.
Life is like a bowl of spaghetti. Every once in a while, you get a meatball.
On that night after Phoebe had given her Pandora report, I thought about the Hope in Pandora’s box. Maybe when everything seemed sad and miserable, Phoebe and I could both hope that something might start to go right.
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.
Man needs bread and hyacinths: one to feed the body, and one to feed the soul.
Relationships with parents, grandparents, friends, and siblings were important to me when I was young and have remained so throughout my life. Our relationships with other people both shape and reflect who we are. These relationships are infinitely fascinating to explore!
I wish that every baby everywhere could land in a family that wanted that baby as much as we want ours.
Why do people not listen when you say no? Why do they think you are too stupid or too young to understand? Why do they think you are too shy to reply? Why do they keep badgering you until you will say yes?
A library is the door to many lives.
I prayed to trees. This was easier than praying directly to God. There was nearly always a tree nearby.
The sea, the sea, the sea. It rolled and rolled and called to me. Come in, it said, come in.
What exactly did people do when they had all the time in the world and could do whatever they liked?
Young children are naturally so philosophical. They ask: ‘What is real? What is truth?’ They have to learn it; they don’t automatically know it. To them, it’s a game. You can study this for years in college, and yet you probably asked it when you were four or five years old.
Once ‘Walk Two Moons’ received the Newbery Medal, I decided to write full-time. Partly because there seemed to be an audience out there who wanted to read what I wanted to write, and partly because I could now support myself financially through writing.
I entered a poem in a poetry contest around 1987, and the poem won and I received $1,000 for it. That made me realize that maybe what I was writing was worth reading to people. After that, for some reason, I turned to novels and I’ve written mainly novels ever since.
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.
Each child brings so much joy and hope into the world, and that is reason enough for being here. As you grow older, you will contribute something else to this world, and only you can discover what that is.
When I read good stories, I want to write good stories too.
I enjoy receiving and giving realistic fiction, for both children and adults, with strong characters, beautiful language, and humane visions.
As readers can probably tell from my books, I love the outdoors.
I don’t remember titles of books or authors from when I was young. I remember the title of only one book, which was ‘The Timber Toes.’ I remember it was a family of little wooden people who lived in the woods, and for some reason that stayed with me.