When we're about telling the best possible story, making the best possible book - we're thinking about the reader, rather than about our egos. And then we serve the story. Not the other way 'round.

When we run from God, we run away from everything that makes us alive and free. We run away from our own happiness. We leave our place where we belong—close to his heart.

There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.

A picture book is a story told in two languages - word and image. And the illustration is the front door of the book.

In a successful picture book, you always want the voice of the text to match the voice of the art; so that it seems as if the same person writing is the one illustrating and vice versa.

Even death is going to die!

The voice of Conscience has needed us to know again who we are in reality.

If you can't share what's important to you with the people around you, then you have no relationships. It's all just proximity, and turkey, and sports, and weather, and bullshit.

Washington DC is happiest when in indignation overdrive.

I am not beautiful. My mother once called me an ugly duckling. But,listed separately, I have a few good features.

Sometimes a certain innocence is good, but not about yourself.

This is an elegant hotel! Room service has an unlisted number.

There are moments in life when all we can bear is the sense that our friend is near us; our wounds would wince at the touch of consoling words, that would reveal the depths of our pain.

Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)

How I wish the mass media had christened me Joe instead of Joey. I hate Joey, not going to lie. Nobody I respect calls me it.