I hate to cook and love to eat.

This is a wonderful joke to play upon a prisoner, to promise forgiveness.

My goal is two pages a day, five days a week. I never want to write, but I’m always glad that I have done it. After I write, I go to work at the bookstore.

We forget that the simple gesture of putting a book in someone’s hands can change a life. I want to remind you that it can. I want to thank you because it did. – 2010...

Besides, who ever asked you what you wanted in this world, girl?The answer to that question, reader, as you well know, was absolutely no one.

What?” said the first hood irritably. Despereaux shuddered. His own brother was delivering him to the dungeon. His heart stopped beating and shrunk to a small, cold, disbelieving pebble.

I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, which means I had a lot of formal training in reading.

Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.

Despereaux was reading the story out loud to himself. He was reading from the beginning so that he could get to the end…

Open your heart. Someone will come. Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart.

They lived happily ever after. It said so. In the book. They were the last words on the page. Happily ever after. Despereaux was sure that he had read exactly those words time and time...

I have done quite a few signings at bookstores, libraries and conferences. I have received phone calls and letters from people who liked the book.

the story is not a pretty one. there is violence in it. And cruelty. But stories that are not pretty have a certain value, too, I suppose. Everything, as you well know (having lived in...

The story is about what happens when you share your heart with somebody else; it is also about the danger of keeping things locked up.

It is our duty and our joy to communicate our hearts to each other. Words assist us in this task.

There ain’t a body, be it mouse or man, that ain’t made better by a little soup.

Farewell” is a word that, in any language, is full of sorrow. It is a word that promises absolutely nothing.

I like to think of myself as a storyteller.

Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.

Understand, I had absolutely no interest in writing; I wanted to be a Writer.