She [my mother] said that if I listened to her, later I would know what she knew: where true words came from, always from up high, above everything else. And if I didn't listen to her, she said my ear would bend too easily to other people, all saying words that had no lasting meaning, because they came from the bottom of their hearts, where their own desires lived, a place where I could not belong.

I think we often write because we feel a loneliness, and people read for the same reason, and then they come away feeling a little less lonely.

Now they seemed to be in a contest over who could irritate her more, and she sometimes had to remind herself that teenagers had souls

Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of an argument.

But I was no longer sacared. I could see what was inside me. -Lindo

Now you see,' said the turtle, drifting back into the pond, 'why it is useless to cry. Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else's joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears.

I wanted to write stories for myself. At first it was purely an aesthetic thing about craft. I just wanted to become good at the art of something. And writing was very private.