We are more and more into technology. Everything is texting, and everything is instant. Flowers are completely impractical as a method of communication when you could just send a text.

I was a screenwriting and studio art major in college, so even though I don't have any training as a floral designer, I have a very particular visual aesthetic.

I don't think there is anything magical about the language of flowers in real life or in my book.

I founded Camellia Network with my dear friend Isis Dallis Keigwin. The mission of our organization is to create a national network that connects every youth aging out of foster care to the critical resources, opportunities, and support they need to thrive in adulthood.

My last book, 'The Language of Flowers,' I wrote completely on naptime, when my little kids were asleep.

First drafts are never any good - at least, mine aren't.

Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees.

A sculptor is a person who is interested in the shape of things, a poet in words, a musician by sounds.

I think it's the pain and suffering that drive you to become an artist. The art itself should be the pain, sort of exorcising every demon and making you feel like you're a person that matters.

A picture book is a small door to the enormous world of the visual arts, and they're often the first art a young person sees.

It is one of the most effective attitudes of the neurotic to measure thumbs down, so to speak, a real person by an ideal, since in doing so he can depreciate him as much as he wishes.

Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it's how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.