Alison McGhee quotes:

I suppose, the natural outgrowth about writing about two friends, it becomes about their friendship, and the complexities of it, and the way personality plays off each other, and what they each like to do, separately and together.

We had dinner at Figlio's, which has turned into a restaurant called Il Gato. I'm 99% positive I had Joe's Eggs. I know every time I went there, and I loved it, I ordered Joe's Eggs. Kate [DiCamillo] probably had a pizza, because she loves pizza.

The world should have stopped, but it didn't. The world kept on going. How can the world just keep on going? An earthquake in India kills a thousand people, and the world keeps on going. A famine in China kills a million people, and the world keeps on going. The twin towers of the World Trade Center buckle and fall, and the world, the world keeps on going.

Water seeks its own level. Look at them. The Tigris, the Euphrates, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Yangtze. The world's great rivers. And every one of them finds its way to the ocean.

I don't think we [with Kate DiCamillo] intended to write a book about friendship, I think we intended to write a book about two friends.

We had so much fun together as friends that I suggested we [with Kate DiCamillo] write a book together.

It's very cool to be short, very cool. When I was in eighth grade, and the height I am now, I would just look at the cute little short girls and think, 'If only, if only.'

There comes a point at which you stop giving things up. That is what i won't give up. None of it will i give up, for my beautiful sister Ivy who lies in bed. Ivy who used to be alive. Ivy who used to be. Ivy who used. Ivy who. Ivy-who-is-not-me. Not me. Not me. Not me.

You are most powerful when you are most silent. People never expect silence. They expect words, motion, defense, offense, back and forth. They expect to leap into the fray. They are ready, fists up, words hanging leaping from their mouths. Silence? No.

We met in the summer or fall of 2001. I had never met Kate [DiCamillo], though I'd heard her name, and I think she knew of me too. We were laughing within a few minutes, I mean really, furiously, laughing. So we were off to a good start.

I'm a big State Fair person, and my main goal is to eat as much food as possible, but I tend not to do the foods on a stick. But I like Big Fat Bacon.

I like to write in all different genres. I just like a new challenge.

Wouldn't want to miss a war, would I?

Little boy, you remind me how so much depends of day made of now

It's very cool to be short, very cool. When I was in eighth grade, and the height I am now, I would just look at the cute little short girls and think, 'If only, if only.

Your heart literally hurts when it's breaking. You can feel it, every beat another ache, and nothing you can do will stop it, either from beating or breaking.

Walk slowly; all you can ever come to is yourself.

What is the matter with these people, these people who won't stop fighting, won't stop hurting each other...?

We certainly have a lot of ideas, and we both love what Tony [Fucile] did with the book [Bink & Gollie]. If we could all pull it off, I think all three of us would like to do another.

Our rule was that we [with Kate DiCamillo] would write everything together, literally every word.

Kate [DiCamillo] tends to be more reluctant about change. I convinced her to give it a try and she came over.

So we [with Kate DiCamillo] decided to give the friends an object and see what they did with it. The object was a sock and it went from there. Once we got going, once we got on a roll, it became very easy to work together and to figure out how to do it. We would meet for two-hour segments, usually from 10-12, two or three times a week. We met all one summer, and I think into the fall.

All it takes is a single moment.

We'd decided to write a book about two friends. I gave her some coffee and then we sat there not knowing what to do. How do you start writing a book together? So Kate [DiCamillo] got up after about 10 minutes into this endeavor, and said, 'Well, that was fun,' and started to head out the door. I said, 'Wait, wait, wait, no no no,' because I'm a bit more patient.

You are most powerful when you are most silent....

So we [with Kate DiCamillo] would act them out, we would toss ideas back and forth, we would laugh, we would argue. Sometimes it went really well, sometimes it was such a pain in the ass. Our other rule was that we wouldn't work on it at all when we weren't in the other's presence. It was really hard not to do that. We'd start going on email back and forth, 'What do you think about this, what do you think about that?' But, no, no, no, it had to be live. So we forced ourselves not to look at it except during those two-hour stretches when we were actually with each other.

I'll live in another world, then.

We pulled them [ Bink & Gollie] out of our feeble little brains.