One of the problems of being a storyteller is the cultivated ability to extrapolate; in every situation all the what ifs come to me.

We, and I think I'm speaking for many writers, don't know what it is that sometimes comes to make our books alive. All we can do is write dutifully and day after day, every day, giving our work the very best of what we are capable. I don't that we can consciously put the magic in; it doesn't work that way. When the magic comes, it's a gift.

The story comes, and it is pure story. That's all I set out to write. But I don't believe that we can write any kind of story without including, whether we intend to or not, our response to the world around us.

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine.

A book comes and says, 'Write me.

The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness.

Someone said, 'It's all been done before.'Yes, I agreed, but we all have to say it in our own voice.

But I am a storyteller, and that involves language, for me the English language, that wonderfully rich, complex, and ofttimes confusing tongue. When language is limited, I am thereby diminished, too.