The girls show more skin these days, but I think, generally, they behave the same way as when I was growing up.
Cecily von ZiegesarBack in my days as a children's book editor, my superiors caught on to the fact that teenagers were using the Internet to gossip about each other, and thought it might be nifty to develop a series of books about an anonymous high-school blogger who gossips about her classmates. The concept was passed on to me.
Cecily von Ziegesar'Gossip Girl' came out in rapid succession over two years, so the endings always had to be suspenseful so that you couldn't wait for the next one.
Cecily von ZiegesarI'll tell you what I think. I think you need to stay indoors reading more books!
Cecily von ZiegesarAnd who am I? That's one secret I'll never tell...You know you love me. XOXO, Gossip Girl
Cecily von ZiegesarTaste of metal on my tongue. Poison the color of envy- I'm delirious, you're delicious, I'm deluded and delusional. I'm lost without you. I need you.
Cecily von ZiegesarThere's a boy who they call Pony! He's always acting gross and horny! He thinks he's got a lot down there, but he sure wears tiny underwear!
Cecily von ZiegesarMy biggest fear in writing 'Gossip Girl' was that the characters would sound like stereotypical rich, air-headed heiresses. These were my friends. They were smart and multifaceted. They had interests and passions. They wanted to become lawyers and doctors and writers and filmmakers.
Cecily von Ziegesarthe only way to tolerate the thought of her mother sleeping with that man was to get drunk-very drunk.
Cecily von ZiegesarYou know when you see a gorgeous boy on the street and you say to your friend, "Look at him!" and then your friend makes a face like, ugly? We all have such totally varied tastes that someone is going to look at you and think, yum-yum dee-lish, no matter what you think you look like. You just have to learn to see what they see.
Cecily von ZiegesarI have no sense of what I should or shouldn't talk about. I just blather. Which is why it's fun to write 'Gossip Girl.' I do tend to just talk about anything.
Cecily von ZiegesarI'm always saying that my books are not autobiographical because they're not. I can't choose any one scene and say, 'Oh, this is exactly what happened to me!' I just use little snippets of things as a starting point!
Cecily von ZiegesarNot that she didn't love almost every boy she'd ever met, and not that every boy in the world didn't totally love her. It was impossible not to. But she wanted someone to love her and shower her with attention the way only a boy who was completely in love with her could. The rare sort of love. True love. The kind of love she'd never had.
Cecily von ZiegesarFace it, you have to be sort of an egomaniac to write something down and think that anyone is going to want to read it.
Cecily von Ziegesaroh my god, she couldn't help thinking. I have hairy legs and I'm going to die alone.
Cecily von Ziegesarthe garbage cans and mailboxes on the sidewalk would stay the same, but the people would be just a beautiful blur of motion.
Cecily von ZiegesarIt really kind of sucked to be close to someone for so long and then suddenly not be anything anymore.
Cecily von ZiegesarSmart, truly hilarious, and entirely sympathetic. Like a hot bubble bath or a holiday at the beach, you won't want it to end.
Cecily von ZiegesarI remember, in my senior year, one of my teachers taking me aside and saying: 'You look really tired.' This was when I was being a bad kid and she knew that something was wrong.
Cecily von ZiegesarI always resented books that tried to teach a lesson, where the characters are too good: They don't swear, they tell their mothers everything.
Cecily von ZiegesarRecently my publicist asked me for a college photo, and I realize how chubby I looked. I know this sounds totally shallow, but my advice is don't fall prey to the freshmen fifteen!
Cecily von ZiegesarI certainly didn't say while writing 'Gossip Girl,' 'Oh this is going to be big!' It was really like, 'Oh god, everyone's gong to hate these people! They're so bratty!' But I actually think what is so appealing about them is the humor in them.
Cecily von Ziegesar...don't act like I didn't for you. I did. Hard. And for a long time. So please, forgive me if now that we're over, I'm exhausted.
Cecily von ZiegesarI feel something vibrating and I really hope it's your phone." Serana told Dan, who blushed.
Cecily von ZiegesarBut I've always been fascinated with that prettiest-girl-in-the-class person that I never was, getting inside her head and showing that she's just as tormented and messed up as everybody else.
Cecily von ZiegesarI decided that, if I were to write a teen series, I'd want to set it in a place that was familiar to me - Manhattan, where I'd grown up - and I'd model the characters on myself and my friends.
Cecily von ZiegesarI'm just a crazy person. I mean, I really didn't have any trouble coming up with weird ways for people to die. I think I'm just very twisted!
Cecily von ZiegesarWhen I meet other parents and they're more 'mumsy' than I am - you know, I don't want to be 'mumsy,' but I'm like, 'Were you always like that or... what happened?
Cecily von ZiegesarI feel like 'Gossip Girl' isn't really 'Gossip Girl' anymore when they're away at school because they don't go to NYU; they go to, like, Yale and Brown. New York City is just as much a character as anyone else in the books, and I was really sort of reluctant to show them off in their separate college worlds.
Cecily von ZiegesarEven now, I change my style and clothes from one day to the next, but during high school I blended in. I think a lot of people are that way. I guess that's why I can write about an array of characters.
Cecily von ZiegesarDestiny is for losers. It's just a lame excuse for letting things happen to you instead of making them happen.
Cecily von ZiegesarI used to be an editor and I was editing young adult series. I didn't really like the books that I was reading, so I decided that I would write a book about something I'd want to read if I was 16. It turned into a Cinderella story... I developed a proposal and the characters of 'Gossip Girl' for my job.
Cecily von ZiegesarSo Mr.Bass why do you think you should become an Usher?" asked the interviewer.Chuck smiled. Because I'm Chuck Bass.
Cecily von ZiegesarBlair liked to think of herself as a hopeless romantic in the style of old movie actresses like Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. She was always coming up with plot devices for the movie she was starring in at the moment, the movie that was her life.
Cecily von ZiegesarNate stared, slack-jawed as the cab merged with the traffic and became impossible to spot. That was it. They chose each other. Just then, the dark sky lit up with fireworks. A cab sailing the street honked in celebration . In the night air , Nate thought he could hear Serena and Blairs' laughter, though he knew that was impossible; they were too far away by now. But as we know, in this city anything is possible
Cecily von Ziegesar