Nancy Willard

“Sometimes questions are more important than answers.”

“In Jenny Offill's remarkable first novel, 'Last Things,' 7-year-old Grace Davitt watches her mother, Anna, descend into madness and tries to make sense of the claustrophobic world that Anna has created for her.”

“Jean Piaget observed that scarcely any question seems absurd to a child, but he was silent on the question of absurd answers from adults.”

“Armenian folklore has it that three apples fell from Heaven: one for the teller of a story, one for the listener, and the third for the one who 'took it to heart.' What a pity Heaven awarded no apple to the one who wrote the story down.”

“When I was growing up, I loved stories in which a girl sets out on a quest to rescue the prince instead of the other way around.”