As a child, I disliked books in which children learned to be 'better' children.

I don't necessarily start with the beginning of the book. I just start with the part of the story that's most vivid in my imagination and work forward and backward from there.

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

Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.

Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being able to make something from a sudden idea.

We didn't have television in those days, and many people didn't even have radios. My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening.

What interests me is what children go through while growing up.