I do have trouble starting books. I have ideas that I have trouble starting to write. But I'm the kind of person who tends to finish everything she starts out of sheer stubbornness.

She looked at her hand: Just some hand, holding a cheap pen. Some girls’ hand. She had nothing to do with that hand. Let that hand do whatever it wanted to.

I didnt write anything at all except book reports until I was in seventh grade, and then I wrote mostly poetry for myself.

Kids are really tougher than adults, but we tend to forget this in an affluent society that lets kids indulge themselves.

But I'll tell you something else, too. Something I've learned, the hard way. I guess"—Gram laughed a little—"I'm the kind of person who has to learn things the hard way. You've got to hold on. Hold on to people. They can get away from you. It's not always going to be fun, but if you don't—hold on—then you lose them.

By the time I started high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer. After graduating from Smith College in Massachusetts, I moved to New York City and worked for the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson.

When a daring idea first crosses one's mind, if it is to be realized in the future it is often appealing. Then, as the time for its execution comes nearer, one begins to dread that which had once been anticipated.