"I have to say that I think I probably took the library for granted, because my father had been taking me since before I could walk, probably. For him, as an immigrant from a country that had been through a couple of very devastating wars, where libraries were not a real high priority, the libraries in this country were a miracle. He just couldn't believe it. He was 19 years old when he went into his first public library ever, and if you think about it, it's a very bizarre concept: "I can walk in and take whatever I want?"…"

“I think stories are forever… the way we get stories has changed. This might be an ostrich-in-the-sand kind of thing, but I still see my job as producing the best story I possibly can.”

“I want all my books to provoke some kind of response in the reader, to make them think something or feel something or both, and for that to become a part of them and work into their own lives. So I do not expect readers to march off to Africa and start doing good works. But maybe one reader will think about Salva when they’re going through their own tough time. Or maybe another reader will think, well, I can’t go off to Africa and drill wells but I can make my corner of the world a tiny bit better. So different people will hopefully get different things. But I think that his story can transcend so many boundaries, cultural and time, and especially because it’s all written around water. You can’t get more of a human universal than water.”