JENNIFER DONNELLY

I struggled for a long time to get anything published.

With 'A Northern Light,' I've already heard from teenage readers, teachers, librarians - it's been so gratifying. It's amazing that you can take something that matters so deeply to you and make it matter to someone else.

I just love historical fiction.

She was his soulmate, as much a part of him as the very flesh and bone that made him. She was with him, in him, in everything he did. She was everything he wanted from his life, the very measure of his dreams.

For the first time in a long time, he didn't think of the past. And of all the things he'd lost. He thought only of the present, and what he had. And how it was so much more than he deserved. And he prayed then that he would never, ever lose it.

I will rain down silver and gold for you. I will shatter the black night, break it open, and pour out a million stars. Turn away from the darkness, the madness, the pain. Open your eyes and know that I am here. That I remember and hope. Open your eyes and look at the light.

Things are NEVER what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was.

I was only glad to be saved and never once thought to ask why.

The King walks. He nods. His glance is like God's touch - under it all things spring to life. A wave of his hand and a hundred musicians tear into the Handel, making a sound you've never heard before, and never will again. A sound that goes through you, through flesh and bone, and reorders the very beat of your heart.

I listened as the words became sentences and the sentences became pages and the pages became feelings and voices and places and people.

Cripes Miss Wilcox, they're not guns,' I said. No, they're not Mattie, they're books. And a hundred times more dangerous.

There is an advantage to be found in most everything that happens to you, even if it is not immediately apparent.

Turn away. From the darkness, the madness, the pain. Open your eyes and look at the light.

He loves the sparkling fountains and their cascades and says the strangest things as he watches them. they look like stars breaking. Or, They look like Mama's diamonds. Or, They look like all the souls in heaven.

What I saw next stopped me dead in my tracks. Books. Not just one or two dozen, but hundreds of them. In crates. In piles on the floor. In bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling and lined the entire room. I turned around and around in a slow circle, feeling as if I'd just stumbled into Ali Baba's cave. I was breathless, close to tears, and positively dizzy with greed.

I've always admired your rather formidable will, your refusal to back away from difficulties, but sometimes strength isn't about perseverance. Sometimes it's about knowing when to quit.

It's only the body that's gone. Only the body. There's a part that doesn't go in the ground, a part that stays inside you forever.

It is hope, not despair, that undoes us all.

I will go out again this very night with my rockets and fuses. I will blow them straight out of their comfortable beds. Blow the rooftops off their houses. Blow the black, wretched night to bits. I will not stop. For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.

I need a boy who thinks with his big head, not his little one. Since they do not exist, I have fashioned my own.

One expects decent people to stand up for the good of all. Decent people shut their doors and hide behind them as decent people do. Massacres could never happen if it weren't for decent people.

Because just for a few seconds, someone else hurts, too. For just a few seconds, I'm not alone.

Meet me where the sky touches the sea. Wait for me where the world begins.

Becuse God loves us, but the devil takes an interest.

I have done this—made the sad prince laugh. Made his grieving parents smile. None but me. Think you only kings have power? Stand on a stage and hold the hearts of men in your hands. Make them laugh with a gesture, cry with a word. Make them love you. And you will know what power is.