My favorite book is my next one. I’m always hoping to make my next book my best one.

The first bowl of chocolate pudding was too hot, but Goldilocks ate it all anyway because, hey, it's chocolate pudding, right?

Aggle flabble kabble . . . snurp?

I also learn a lot about everybody else's process. People create in different ways, so that has opened me up to different processes and experimenting. Laurie Keller is a character person, so she came to the project with these blades-of-grass characters that we were able to literally grow a story around.

If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.

Kids are super-independent. This is the time when you don't need your parents for a story anymore. You have a great degree of agency and independence.

The difference between children and adults is that they're shorter - not dumber.

Writing for children is as easy as describing the history of the Byzantium in three words.