“A book, too, can be a star 'explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly.”

“There are forces working in the world as never before in the history of mankind for standardization, for the regimentation of us all, or what I like to call making muffins of us, muffins all like every other muffin in the muffin tin. This is the limited universe, the drying dissipating universe that we can help our children to avoid by providing them with ‘explosive material capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly'.”

“A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”

“If a book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”

“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.”

“As Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard says, "To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist.”

“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.”