Besides being asked why I write about young characters, I am often asked how I write about young characters. How do I throw myself across the chasm of full adulthood to relive that period? I guess I don’t, really. Age is not so much a feature of your character, as the spot where you stand for a pretty fleeting time on the arc of your life.

Sometimes you need to make a mess. -Loretta, the Rollinses' hosekeeper

I'm not going anywhere without you. We're swimming to China together. And if the worst happens, I'm dying with you before I'm living without you.

The rules took a while to sort out. Lena and Carmen wanted to focus on friendship-type rules, stuff about keeping in touch with one another over the summer, and making sure the Pants kept moving from one girl to the next. Tibby preferred to focus on random things you could and couldn't do in the Pants --- like picking your nose.

I sometimes think the stronger you feel about someone, the harder it is to picture their face when you are away from them.

There are going to be moments of deep, deep doubts, and you have to have faith that your initial idea was good and just muddle through.

We aren't in high school. We aren't really in our families and we aren't in our houses. Those are the places we grew up and the times we spent together, but they aren't us. If think they are, then we're lost, because times end and places are lost. We aren't any place or any time . . . We are everywhere.