There Is Cruelty In The World Eliza,

I Think That Books For Young People Should Have Serious And Important Themes, They Shouldn't Be Trivial. So The Books I Write, They Would Be The Kind Of Stories You Would Write In An Adult Novel Only They Just Happen To Feature A Child At The Center Of Them.

War Today Is Such A More Visible Thing. We See It On Television, On Cnn. In 1914, War Was A Concept.

It Is Possible, You Know, To Drift Off To An Unknown World And Find Happiness There. Maybe Even More Happiness Than You've Ever Known Before.

The Thing About Exploring Is That You Have To Know Whether The Thing You've Found Is Worth Finding. Some Things Are Just Sitting There, Minding Their Own Business, Waiting To Be Discovered. Like America. And Other Things Are Probably Better Off Left Alone. Like A Dead Mouse At The Back Of The Cupboard.

. . .only The Victims And Survivors Can Truly Comprehend The Awfulness Of That Time And Place; The Rest Of Us Live On The Other Side Of The Fence, Staring Through From Our Own Comfortable Place, Trying In Our Own Clumsy Ways To Make Sense Of It All.