The main plot line is simple: Getting your character to the foot of the tree, getting him up the tree, and then figuring out how to get him down again.

Time may heal all wounds, but it does not erase the scars.

Literature is a textually transmitted disease, normally contracted in childhood.

A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old.

Childrens books change lives. Stories pour into the hearts of children and help make them what they become.

Love the writing, love the writing, love the writing... the rest will follow.

It's never perfect when I write it down the first time, or the second time, or the fifth time. But it always gets better as I go over it and over it.

Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story, poem, song, art.

Ideas are the cheapest part of the writing. They are free. The hard part is what you do with ideas you've gathered.

Language helps develp life as surely as it reflects life. It is a most important part of our human condition.

Stories," he'd said, his voice low and almost husky, "we are made up of stories. And even the one's that seem the most like lies can be our deepest hidden truths.

but even the facts do not always tell the truth

Not scared.But excited in thatjiggering-on-too-much-hot-saucekind of waythat it's time tostep outof my old framework, raw and amorphous, to become something I've never thought of before.

I cannot remember you when the rain flows down -I cannot remember youandmy heart begins to drown ...

1 tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.

The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.

I guess chemistry always changes when you play with someone else.

Of course things get stagnant; people get too used to their environment, but that's why I'm in my district every week, at meetings with my constituents.

Logic is an excellent weapon when employed correctly.

The lasting legacy of the Cooter Smash is that I'm the first to know when it's going to rain. That's right. I both sing and predict the weather with my hoo hoo.

I find my wife hath something in her gizzard, that only waits an opportunity of being provoked to bring up; but I will not, for my content-sake, give it.