I approach serious subjects, and I like to have the good guys win and have the parents among the good guys

If you write a story based on a real person, you're trapped by the details of the real person and his life. It gets in the way of writing your own story.

My favorite book is always the one I'm working on at the moment

I believe my voice is pretty much the same. I've written 75 books, so I'm better at it now than I was earlier in my career

But sometimes, in tight corners, when your back is against the wall and the world is against you, you have to fight back in unexpected ways.

I wonder why we always deny love. I remember in middle school, if you were accused of the crime of loving, you screamed denials constantly and stopped ever even looking at the boy you were accused of liking. The boys could destroy each other by yodeling, "An-drew lo-oves Jen-nie," and both Andrew and Jennie would flinch and blush. Love is this great thing that most songs and books and poems and lives are all about. So the minute we actually think there might be love around, we start laughing and pretending and hiding from it.

Stephen had just come from a class discussion in which several students believed that the right cup of herbal tea would save them from pain and sorrow. Well acquainted with pain and sorrow, Stephen did not contribute to the discussion. He merely crossed these idiots off his list of possible friends.