I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, which means I had a lot of formal training in reading.

I was born in Philadelphia and currently live in Minneapolis. I write for both children and adults.

There ain't no way you can hold onto something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it.

Once upon a time," he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him.

There is nothing sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name.

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

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift.

The undoing is almost always more difficult than the doing.

You must be filled with expectancy. You must be awash in hope. You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next.

It is important that you say what you mean to say. Time is too short. You must speak the words that matter.

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

You endure what is supposedly unbearable, and before you know it, you would have done the impossible by bearing the unbearable.

When I get home I take some sleeping pills and within what seemed like half an hour of unconsciousness it was Monday morning again.

In a world like this one, only the random makes sense.

What you don’t understand you cannot treasure.

The universe lies before you on the floor, in the air, in the mysterious bodies of your dancers, in your mind. From this voyage no one returns poor or weary.

Leaving your ears open to the suggestions of others only closes the mind's eye, thereby creating a type of spiritual glaucoma.

Sometimes I can be on a cloud and then two hours later feel really small.

I realized that the people weren't just characters but they were people and they were getting to do something that was so fun and I wanted to be a part of it.

My great objection to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights, or of waging war against tyrants.

Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.