I thought, if I write a book that is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, it's not going to mean that I will not get any criticism. I might as well write the book that I want to write.

You know, the point of a novel - or to me, the point of a novel, the gift of a novel is to go really deeply inside people's lives and inside their personal experiences.

But I never thought of who he wasn't, I never had to explain or defend him to myself, I didn't even care what we talked about.

She opened her mouth but did not immediately speak, and I felt, simultaneously, the impulse to coax the words from her and the impulse to suppress them. I always thought I wanted to know a secret, or I wanted an event to unfold – I wanted my life to start – but in those rare moments when it seemed like something might actually change, panic shot through me.

I don't think that I would ever, while writing, think to myself, "I need a little more psychological realism."

High school is very intense for everyone. But at a boarding school, because you're there 24 hours a day, everything gets magnified.

I always worried someone would notice me, and then when no one did, I felt lonely.