“I allow readers to fill in the details as necessary. But I don’t force kids to have to digest something they’re not mature enough or ready for yet.”

I’m going to tell kids the way things really were.

The waiting that people do in Turkey to get aboard one of these boats is incredible.

I don’t know that I would have the courage to come over to a new country where the religion is different, the language is different, where I don’t have any money.

Baseball, more than any other sport, has a magical way of connecting fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, grandparents and grandchildren and ancestors back down the line. – From The Brooklyn Nine

Waiting is a huge part of being a refugee. You’re waiting at borders to get across. You’re waiting for transportation.

People will ask me, “How do you approach writing books for young readers differently than for adults?” My answer is always: I don’t change anything about the story itself.

And then when they finally do get aboard, it’s the last place they want to be. It’s harrowing. That is the horrible irony of a refugee’s life.

If they are, they can fill in the details even better than I could, just with their imaginations.

Your family immigrated to this country – whether they came over on the Mayflower or whether they came over on a raft last year.

You wait and wait for the next step, and when you get to the next step, it’s awful.

What I don’t do – and this is the only thing I do differently in writing for kids – is that I don’t revel in the gory details.

I think kids are incredibly savvy readers.

One of the things I tell about Refugee is that unless you’re Native American or a descendant of slaves.

You don’t want to be doing it. But you have to. You have to keep moving forward.

The thought of starting over like that in the way that many refugee families have to start all over again – that’s an incredible thing to think about.

I think we should give them all the credit in the world. They want to know the truth.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

I have also a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which, till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns.

To be a fool at the right time is also an art.

Let the husband render to his wife the affection owed her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.

I see a green tree. And to me it is green. And you would call the tree green also. And we would agree on this. But is the colour you see as green the same colour I see as green?

But now, I am also learning this: we can be mended. We mend each other.

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.