I will be brave, thought Despereaux. I will try to be brave like a knight in shining armour. I will be brave for the Princess Pea.

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.

Don’t ever let Them tell youyou aretoo broken to bloom

We can all have plenty of lives, but there are limits. You never can tell what they are.

Humans, in the day that has been the Earth, have been here for less than a minute. We’re a late-night piss in the toilet, that’s all we are.

No religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.

I rarely write in my own voice except in book reviews and memoirs; otherwise, I am writing in mediated voices, modulated in terms of the characters whom the voices express.

The militia is our ultimate safety. We can have no security without it. The great object is that every man be armed.

Don't sit around playing Mr. Tough Guy. Don't say 'It's going to go away'... It's just important - just go get checked out. It's not like you're going to lose your manhood.

Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.

Problem-solving is hunting; it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.

No, you are not to complain or question who you are, but instead, grow, reaching for the light that's inside you.