“In the manner of one recognizing a line from a familiar poem in a strange book.”

“I hope, that in the days, and weeks, and years to come, the question of where the dividing lines between adult and children’s fiction really are, and why they blur so, and whether we truly need them—and who, ultimately, books are for—will rise up in your mind when you least expect it to, and vex you, as you also are unable, in an entirely satisfactory manner, to answer it.”

“Words can be worrisome, poeple complex, motives and manners unclear, grant her the wisdom to choose her path right, free from unkindness and fear.”

“Recounting the strange is like telling one's dreams: one can communicate the events of a dream, but not the emotional content, the way that a dream can colour one's entire day.”

“Writing fiction is not a profession that leaves one well-disposed toward reading fiction. One starts out loving books and stories, and then one becomes jaded and increasingly hard to please. I read less and less fiction these days, finding the buzz and the joy I used to get from fiction in ever stranger works of non-fiction, or poetry.”

“I am a poem, or I am a pattern, or a race of people whose world was swallowed by the sea.”

“Libraries are the thin red line between civilization and barbarism."[Libraries on the Front Lines, ALA interview 2011]”