I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all.

I hope children will be happy with the books I've written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.

One rainy Sunday when I was in the third grade, I picked up a book to look at the pictures and discovered that even though I did not want to, I was reading. I have been a reader ever since.

With twins, reading aloud to them was the only chance I could get to sit down. I read them picture books until they were reading on their own.

If you don't see the book you want on the shelves, write it.

Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood.

Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.

She was not a slowpoke grownup. She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.

I didn't start out writing to give children hope, but I'm glad some of them found it.

Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being able to make something from a sudden idea.

I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.

There are more experiences in life than you’d think for which there are no words.

Take complete control over the messages you allow into your conscious mind.

All my siblings became artists. One's a novelist, my brother is a painter, my sister was a costume designer.

It was an honor to coach him. He should be proud of what he did this year.

I had no idea Stravinsky disliked Debussy so much as this.

Many Southern writers must have learned the art of storytelling from listening to oral tales. I did. It gave me the knowledge that the simplest incident can make a story.

My fans are really loud but they are great. I've never liked someone so much to go up and scream that loud.

The idea of public service was instilled in me by watching my father, who shared that he was far more fulfilled in his public service than by his former lucrative corporate jobs.

Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little.

The more you learn what to do with yourself, and the more you do for others, the more you will learn to enjoy the abundant life.