I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.

I write in longhand on yellow legal pads.

Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood.

I don't think children's inner feelings have changed. They still want a mother and father in the very same house; they want places to play.

The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible.

All her life she had wanted to squeeze the toothpaste really squeeze it,not just one little squirt. [...] The paste coiled and swirled and mounded in the washbasin. Ramona decorated the mound with toothpaste roses as if it was a toothpaste birthday cake

I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.