“Stories never really end...even if the books like to pretend they do. Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page, any more than they begin on the first page.”

“So what? All writers are lunatics!”

“Second, there are so many magical places in books that you can't go to, like Hogwarts and Middle Earth, so I wanted to set a story in a place where children can actually go.”

“There is a sort of busy worm, That will the fairest book deform. Their tasteless tooth will tear and taint The poet, patriot, sage or saint, Nor sparing wit nor learning. Now, if you’d know...”

“So Mo began filling the silence with words. He lured them out of the pages as if they had only been waiting for his voice, words long and short, words sharp and soft, cooing, purring words....”

“You know, it's a funny thing about writers. Most people don't stop to think of books being written by people much like themselves. They think that writers are all dead long ago--they don't e...”

“There was another reason [she] took her books whenever they went away. They were her home when she was somewhere strange. They were familiar voices, friends that never quarreled with her, cl...”

“As Mo had said: writing stories is a kind of magic, too.”

“It's a good idea to have your own books with you in a strange place”