There's so many different kinds of rights to consider these days: computer, e-book, all sorts of things. Forget foreign rights and entertainment rights. There are so many things to consider and an agent is going to know how to wade through all that much better than you are.

It's great that there are so many different kinds of books for kids and adults to choose from. I think an eclectic reader is the best kind of reader to be, which would be why I was always so satisfied to hear that kids read the Baby-Sitters Club books and then went on and discovered other authors and other genres.

If you're very serious about writing it's helpful to find an agent. It's becoming more and more competitive to have your manuscript even looked at by an editor. Many companies don't accept unsolicited manuscripts anymore, so they'll pay more attention to something that comes in through an agent.

Some days,' I say, 'I feel like I don't belong anywhere in that world. That world out there. 'I point to Grant. 'People walk down our street and people drive down it and people ride their bicycles down it and all of them, even the ones I know, could be from another planet. And I'm a visiting alien.' And aliens don't belong anywhere,' Adam finishes for me, 'except in their own little corners of the universe.' Right,' I say. ~pgs 57-58 Hattie and Adam on alienation

Cats definitely have their own opinions.

It was the kind of terrified look that reminds you that no matter how rational or grown up a person might seem, some part of him is absolutely sure - knows - that an evil other-world exists just outside of our regular, everyday world. And that although we don't expect that world to collide with our calm, predictable one...well, really, at any moment that is exactly what might happen.

I believe you are one of the people that can lift the corners of the universe.