I’m incredibly excited about Awful Ogre. The ogre is my alter ego. It’s a day in the life of an ogre, from when he gets up until he goes to bed.

My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It’s early work, derivative work.

I wonder if I ever thought of an ideal reader… I guess when I was in my 20s and in New York and maybe even in my early 30s, I would write for my wife...

I’m not sure that the benefit – as a writer and as a citizen – that I would get from reading at least the front page of the Times every day or every other day...

But maybe it’s up in the hills under the leaves or in a ditch somewhere. Maybe it’s never found. But what you find, whatever you find, is always only part of the missing, and writing...

A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.

Truth, also is the pursuit of it.

There’s not too much difference between writing a picture book and writing a collection of a hundred poems or so, except that the bigger books take a lot longer to do.

I don’t think I’m particularly beautiful at all.

It’s enormously cheering to get a good review by someone who seems to understand your work.

The older I get, the more I feel almost beautiful.