I don't ever go on the Internet. I don't even know how it works.

I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.

I feel sometimes that in children's books there are more and more grim problems, but I don't know that I want to burden third- and fourth-graders with them.

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

The humiliation that Jane had felt turned to something else--grief perhaps, or regret. Regret that she had not known how to act with a boy, regret that she had not been wiser.

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

Problem solving, and I don't mean algebra, seems to be my life's work. Maybe it's everyone's life's work.