“Books were the window from which I looked out of a rather meager and d...” — Zilpha Keatley Snyder Quote

Books were the window from which I looked out of a rather meager and decidedly narrow room onto a rich and wonderful universe. I loved the look and feel of books, even the smell... Libraries were treasure houses. I always entered them with a slight thrill of disbelief that all their endless riches were mine for the borrowing.

I think writing is an extension of a childhood habit - the habit of entertaining oneself by taking interesting bits of reality and building upon them.

Writing for children hadn't occurred to me when I was younger, but nine years of teaching in the upper elementary grades had given me a deep appreciation of the gifts and graces that are specific to individuals with 10 or 11 years of experience as human beings.

I seemed to have been born reading.

I love Forever 21. A friend of mine introduced it to me when I was in New York. I was borrowing a dress and said, 'Where's that from?' and she said, 'Oh, it's Forever 21,' and I said, 'What, I've never heard of that!' and she said, 'Oh it's this American brand,' and I thought, 'Why doesn't England have that; why doesn't Europe have one?'

Not all cultural borrowing is a form of social violence: some of it is just cringe.

You cannot just keep borrowing more and more and keep spending more and more without eventually having a day of reckoning.

Huge public spending and borrowing in the face of an existential crisis is clearly the right thing to do, as is putting people's health and wellbeing above the pursuit of economic growth.